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CHAPTER V

THE NEW ENGLAND COUNCIL

We come now to consider an organization of a type somewhat different from the London company, though closely connected with it in origin and history. After the failure of the experiment at Sagadahoc, the Plymouth patentees limited their efforts to fishing voyages and to the detailed exploration of the coast of northern Virginia. The number of the patentees was small and their resources were limited. They slumbered on while the London merchants procured two new charters, by which the extent of their domain was made more definite, and under the authority of which they successfully founded a colony on the James river.

Finally, in 1620, moved partly, as Gorges suggests, by emulation, the survivors among the Plymouth patentees petitioned the king for a new charter.¹ By this time northern Virginia had been christened New England, and the patentees by adopting the name as the designation of their province established its connection forever with the coast region north of the fortieth, and later of the forty-first degree. They now asked for the region, the vast extent of which they could not comprehend, lying between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees and extending from sea to sea, and it was granted to them. But before the charter passed the great seal, a protest against the grant was raised by the patrons of the southern colony, which delayed its issue for a time and involved questions of some moment.²

Under the charter of 1606 the two groups of patentees were not prohibited from enjoying privileges, such as those of fishing, within each other’s limits. There is evidence

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that, from the time when Argall, in 1610, relieved the necessities of Jamestown with a cargo of fish which he had caught, it may be near Cape Cod, fishing expeditions had been sent from the southern colony to the New England coast. That coast had also been for years a favorite resort of English fishermen. The expeditions of Argall against the French at Port Royal are familiar examples of operations by one company within the limits of the other. When, in December, 1619, in the court of the London company, John Delbridge applied for permission to fish at Cape Cod,¹ Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who was also a member and was present, objected on the ground that the petitioner should have applied to the patentees of the northern colony. Sir Edwin Sandys, then treasurer, declared in reply not only that the sea was free to both companies, but that it was clear from the letters patent that each might fish along the coasts of the other. Gorges affirmed his belief that the rights of each were exclusive, and offered to submit the point to the council of both companies. This was agreed to, and the council, the majority of whom in attendance may quite probably have been members of the London company, supported the view of Sandys. License was thereupon given to the society of Smith’s Hundred “to go a-fishing.” But certain of the patentees of the northern colony were not satisfied, and insisted upon considering the question further. It seems to have been referred to the Duke of Lenox and the Earl of Arundel, who failed to reach a decision satisfactory to either party.

In the midst of this discussion Gorges and his associates petitioned for the new charter, and proposed the introduction into it of a clause securing to them the monopoly of trade and fishing along their entire coast. This the London patentees claimed to be an infringement of their chartered rights. It was also a violation of the principle held by some of them, that the sea was as free as air. It was therefore voted to petition the king. The petition drew from the privy council an order² that the two companies should fish along each other’s coasts, though only to the

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extent which was necessary for the support of their respective colonies, or of those bound thither. The king also declared that, if anything injurious to the southern colony had been introduced into the patent, it had been surreptitiously done, and it was ordered that the affixing of the seal, or at least the delivery of the patent, should be postponed.¹

An understanding was now reached to the effect that the charters of both companies should be amended, and the officers of the London company set about the drafting of a new patent of their own. This it was proposed to lay before parliament for its confirmation, that thereby the colony might be strengthened. During the early months of 1621, Sandys was busy with his task. One of the changes which he proposed was the substitution of governor for treasurer as the title of the chief executive of the company. When, however, the draft was shown to Attorney-General Coventry, he expressed the opinion that the change in the name of the corporation which this necessitated would require the surrender of the existing charters. At any rate, he must have a special warrant from the king before he could insert the new clauses. A petition was accordingly sent to the king for this purpose. But before a reply to the petition was received, the struggle between the two companies was carried into the House of Commons.

In the House the Virginia interest was strong, and during the session of 1621 Gorges was three times summoned² before the Commons on the charge that, under the color of planting a colony, he and his associates were establishing a monopoly, which was a “grievance of the commonwealth.” Personally and through counsel he defended himself against the charge, showing both adroitness and vigor. When asked to produce the patent before the House, he replied that, for aught he knew, it was still in the crown office of the chancery, where it had been left in order that certain faults in it might be amended, and thence the House might procure it at its pleasure. He denied that it was intended to convert the profits derived from fishing on the New England

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coast to private uses, but affirmed that instead they were to be used for the establishment of a plantation, the importance of which to the entire kingdom Gorges was not slow to emphasize before the members of the House. The benefits sought, he said, were no more than those enjoyed by many lords of manors in their counties, and were not inconsistent with the laws. At a later hearing, supplementing the arguments of his counsel from his own abundant knowledge, he described the disorders committed by the fishermen along the coast, and called attention to the danger that, because of these, the whole region, with its fishing interests, would fall into the possession of the French, Spanish, or Dutch. In his defence Gorges had the sympathy and support of the Smith faction within the London company, some of whom were members of the Commons. He had also secured as the New England patentees a large part of the nobles who were most influential at court,—Buckingham, Lenox, Salisbury, Arundel, Pembroke, Hamilton, and others. Upon their influence he relied, while the Sandys party in the London company was becoming more obnoxious to the king because of its political connections and the disputes which arose over the tobacco question. A bill for freer liberty of fishing and fishing voyages was introduced into the Commons, and of this Sandys was the chief promoter. It was debated at length, but before any decisive step could be taken, Sandys and Southampton were arrested, June, 1621. This put an end to proceedings against the charter in parliament.

An order in council¹ was issued, on June 18, providing that the New England charter should be delivered to the patentees, but with the additional specifications that colonists from Virginia should have the freedom of the shore for the purpose of drying their nets, taking and saving their fish, and at reasonable rates they should have the wood necessary for their use. This concession, however, was not introduced into the charter itself. As no further reference to the proposed new Virginia patent appears, the conclusion must be that it was suppressed. Thus, through influence at

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court and after a struggle of nearly two years, Gorges had secured his grant, without the omission of the obnoxious clause.

The charter provided for a new company under the title of the “Council established at Plymouth in the County of Devon for the Planting, Ruling, and Governing of New England in America.” The strongest words of incorporation were used, and the territory between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north latitude, and extending through the continent, was bestowed, with power to grant it out to settlers. The customary rights of settlement and trade were given, though in a somewhat detailed and monopolistic form. Powers of government were also bestowed, and in much the same language as was used in the London charter of 1609. The right was given to constitute officers, as well those in England as those employed in the colony, and to issue instructions for the guidance of magistrates in New England. An official oath was to be formulated and administered to those in the plantation service, and also a judicial oath to be used in the examination of persons touching the plantation or its business.

But the New England council is interesting in the present connection chiefly because of its name and its organization. In name it was the same as the Royal Council for Virginia. In number of members the two were not unlike. The members of both were required to take an oath of office before the lord chancellor, the lord high treasurer, or the lord chamberlain. In both cases they were the grantees of governmental powers. But in the London system of 1609 the council, though originally distinct, became merely a part of the corporation, losing thereby its separate existence. In the New England system the council was the corporation, and thus was the grantee of all powers. The two were closely joined as they were under the London charter; but in this case the corporation was merged in the council, the latter holding the chief place and giving character to the system. This council, then, like the council in the London company, was the body to which the king addressed his instructions, if he had any to give. Its relation to the king

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and the privy council was direct. Its relation to the colonists was also direct, and it did not share the work of administration with the corporation, for it was the corporation.

The last distinction to be noted between the New England council and the London company is this: the council was a closed body, limited to forty members. These, with a few exceptions, were members of the nobility and knighthood, and were connected with the court party. Some were also members of the London company. Vacancies were to be filled by coöptation. It never could become, then, a large and dignified body like that which met at Sir Thomas Smith’s and John Ferrar’s.

After the grant of the charter had been assured, the patentees agreed to contribute £100 each toward starting the enterprise,¹ and an appeal was issued to the towns and cities of the west urging the formation of joint stocks for trade and colonization under the license and protection of the council. But the reports concerning the monopolistic character of the grant, which were spread broadcast as a result of the debates in parliament, prejudiced many against the company. Subscriptions did not come in. The people of the west generally took little interest in the scheme, and it languished from the outset.

To meet the crisis, in 1622, the council issued, from the pen of Gorges, The Briefe Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New England, in which the history of the efforts of the Plymouth patentees was reviewed from the beginning, the existing perplexities of the council and the reasons for them were set forth, the advantages offered by New England for trade and settlement were described, and a scheme of government propounded. This plan was clearly provincial and monarchical in character, in certain features suggestive of the schemes of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and in others of the official system at Sagadahoc. The writer begins with the statement, “As there is no Commonwealth that can stand without Government, so the best governments have ever had their beginnings from one supreme head, who both disposed of the administration of Justice, and execution

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of publike affairs, either according to laws established or by the advice, or counsel” of the most eminent, discreetest, and best able in their kinde.”

After a brief description of the administrative organization of England, he continues, “This foundation being so certaine, there is no reason for us to vary from it, and therefore we have resolved to build our Edifices upon it, and to frame the same after the platform already layd, and from whence we take our denomination.” Then follows the sketch of a governmental system which is English and feudal in every point.¹

Authority in all cases was to proceed from above downwards. The council proposed to commit the general management to a governor, who should be advised by as many of the patentees as should be resident in the province, assisted by the resident officials. These were to be the treasurer, marshal, admiral, master of ordnance, and such others as the patentees should think fit. They were to be guided by the authority given them by the president and council. Two-thirds of the province should be assigned to the patentees as counties, to be settled by themselves and their friends. The remaining one-third should be reserved as a source of revenue, through grants and rents, for general purposes. The entire province should be divided into counties, baronies, hundreds, manors, incorporated towns, and other local subdivisions with which Englishmen were familiar, and representatives from these should meet under authority from the patentees, as a provincial legislature. In this body the clergy, as well as the laity, should be represented. No sign of a communal land or trade system appears in this plan, but instead the council was careful to state, partly as a defence against the charge of monopoly, that particular adventurers would be left to the management of their own estates and officials. “We covet not,” said they, “to engross anything at all unto ourselves;” but they would fain arouse more of the nation to share in the settlement of their vast domain. It was a plan fairly representative of the views of an English courtier, churchman, and territorial lord respecting what a

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colony in America should be. It was an improvement upon the plantation system of Virginia, and foreshadowed what the later proprietary provinces became, but it contained too many monarchical features to be wholly practical. An effort was at once made to organize the province on this model, but, in order to understand its result, reference must first be made to certain other significant events.

Among those who, toward 1620, began to consider the project of founding a private plantation in Virginia was the congregation of Separatists at Leyden which was ministered to by John Robinson. With the religious side of their enterprise we have in this connection nothing to do, except to state that it was a subject of negotiation with the London company and the king as early as 1617. Sandys’ secretary, Naunton, Sir John Wolstenholme, and others were desirous that they should settle in Virginia and that the king should officially guarantee to them liberty of worship. The most, however, that James could be induced to do was to connive at their removal, and refrain from molesting them, provided they kept the peace. While engaged in these negotiations the Separatists were further perplexed by news of the disaster which had attended the voyage of Francis Blackwell to Virginia. Blackwell was a seceder from the non-conformist church at Amsterdam, and had come with a group of followers to London for the purpose of embarking for the colony. While there, and in attendance upon a conventicle, he was arrested, and, to obtain his freedom, recanted. With one vessel, carrying approximately two hundred colonists, “flocked together like herrings,” he then sailed for Virginia. During the voyage, disease carried off about 130 of the passengers, including Blackwell himself and the captain of the vessel. The desire of the Leyden Separatists, however, to preserve their nationality and faith triumphed over the fears naturally aroused by reports like these, and in June, 1619, a patent for a private plantation was secured.¹ It was granted by the London company in the name of John Wincob, a clergyman, who was introduced

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by the Earl of Lincoln, as one intending, with associates, to settle in Virginia. The document was sent to Leyden, and with it propositions which were then under debate between the congregation and such merchants and others as would adventure with them and contribute toward the shipping and other necessary expenses. These were prayerfully considered, and it was resolved that part of the congregation should go and that part, with the pastor, should abide for a time in Leyden; but that, as soon as circumstances permitted, they should all again be united in America. As the result proved, however, Wincob remained in England, and no use was made of his patent.

Among other patents which, in February, 1620, were granted to private adventurers by the London company, was one to John Pierce and associates.¹ One of the associates was Thomas Weston, a merchant and clothworker of London, who had known of the plans of the Leyden congregation. He now visited them, advised them to reject certain propositions recently made by the Dutch, and made them offers of assistance, with the fairness of which they were much impressed. Articles of agreement were prepared, which, after approval by Weston, were sent to England by John Carver, who, together with Robert Cushman, was appointed agent of the congregation and instructed to receive funds and make provision for the voyage.

About this time the New England council was procuring its charter. Weston informed the Leyden people of the fact and, because fishing seemed likely to yield a more immediate profit than the raising of such commodities as could be produced south of the fortieth parallel, he began to urge them to settle within its domain. This caused considerable uncertainty and distraction, but finally it was resolved to choose a northerly location, though no move was made to procure a patent from the New England council. Indeed that would then have been impossible, for the charter had not yet been

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delivered to the council. But the chief cause of anxiety to the leaders of the enterprise arose from the articles of agreement on which the adventurers insisted as the condition upon which alone they would advance funds. The congregation could not act independently, because it had not sufficient resources for the establishment of a colony. Therefore it must not only conform to the general regulations of the company concerning the founding of private plantations, but it must submit to terms from its special adventurers, which seemed irksome, but which the merchants thought necessary as guarantees of profit. As the prime object of the Leyden people was to secure religious freedom, and the sole interest of the adventurers in the scheme was profit, it was evident from the outset that there would be much friction. The women and children of the Separatists were also to be taken with them, and their family organization carefully preserved. So limited were their means, that servants appear in very small numbers among them. From these considerations it appears that the character of the colonists would in this case exert a profound, if not a controlling, influence over the enterprise. They would not be to such an extent clay in the hands of the potter, as even the men and women with whom companies and proprietors usually in that century had to deal. But the fact that at the start the Pilgrims had to accommodate themselves to the joint stock system inaugurated in American colonization by the London company, explains much in the early history of Plymouth, and serves as an important connecting link between the development of Virginia and that of New England.

After his return to England, and because he thought more subscriptions would by this means be secured, Weston insisted that certain changes should be made in the articles of agreement. To save time and, as they thought, further the enterprise, the agents accepted the changes without writing for special authority from Leyden. Cushman took the lead in this course of action, thus exposing himself to criticism. To the criticisms he replied in terms which were to an extent justifiable, but which also revealed impatience

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and a failure duly to appreciate the motives and scruples of those whom he was trying to serve.

Following with some strictness the traditions of the London company, the articles upon which Weston laid stress provided that for a period of seven years the plantation should be managed as a joint stock. Single shares should be valued at £10, and every planter or colonist, sixteen years old and upward, should be rated at that amount. An additional contribution of money or supplies to the value of £10 should entitle one to a double share when the division of land and other property should come. Every youth between ten and sixteen years of age should be considered the equivalent of a half share. For every child under ten years, fifty acres of unimproved land should be allowed in the division. For late comers and those who should die before the end of the seven-year period, shares should be allowed proportioned to the length of time they were in the colony. The business of the plantation should be fishing, agriculture, and the making of such commodities as would be most useful to the colony.¹ The change introduced by the adventurers, to which the Leyden people objected, was the omission of clauses which in the earlier agreement had secured to the planters the right to separate houses² and home lots for themselves and families, and the

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right to two days in the week in which to work for themselves. Upon the restoration of these clauses they now insisted, and refused to sign the agreement in its existing form. When the Speedwell reached Southampton, Weston came down expecting that the articles would be signed, but his urgency availed nothing against the resolve of the planters, and the instructions of those who had remained behind. At this he was offended, and told them as he departed, “that they must look to stand on their own legs.” Cushman was so irritated and discouraged by the difficulties he encountered in collecting supplies at London, to be shipped from Southampton, and in vain efforts to adjust relations between adventurers and planters, that he abandoned the expedition after it had started. The anxieties of the voyagers were increased by all of these complications, and by the necessity they were under of selling some of their supplies in order to pay a debt for which they found that the agents had made no provision. From this time forth Weston was an enemy of the Plymouth settlers, while both planters and adventurers had begun to suffer from incompatibility of temper. So great was their divergence in character and ideal as to ultimately destroy the partnership, and change New Plymouth from a proprietary plantation, conceived on the Virginia model, into a corporate colony of the later New England type.

The vessel which carried the Pilgrims to America was hired and loaded with supplies through the joint action of the adventurers and colonists. So far as we know, she sailed without definite instructions as to a landing place. In the region where the landing was effected, the colonists were squatters, destitute of legal rights of settlement. Left for the time wholly to themselves, as the result of three journeys of exploration along Cape Cod they selected Plymouth as the site of their settlement. It was chosen because it combined the advantages of cleared land, running water,

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a good harbor for vessels of light draught.¹ A good supply of food also seemed immediately accessible in the adjacent waters and forests.

The first step taken toward the building of a town was the erection by joint labor of the common house. This, located a little back from the shore and near the town brook, at first sheltered the colonists and later became their storehouse or magazine. Another common structure was the platform on the hill, where the artillery was planted. The town itself was laid out in the form of two streets, the principal one running back from the shore to Fort Hill, and another crossing it at right angles. Along the first of these streets were located the dwellings of the settlers. As the agreement had not been signed in England, the colonists were free to found separate homesteads, and immediately did so. “We divided by lot² the plot of ground whereon to build our town, after the proportion formerly allotted. We agreed that every man should build his own house, thinking by that course men would make more haste than working in common.” The allotment, previously made, was for nineteen families, it being provided that the single men should join with some family. The larger lots were assigned to the larger families, to each person in the proportion of 8¼ feet front and 49½ feet in depth. Some twelve houses³ were built at the outset.

At the beginning Plymouth was not impaled. Owing to the recent destruction of the natives in the region by a pestilence this seemed unnecessary. But after about a year had passed, owing to rumors of a hostile spirit among the Narragansetts, “they agreed,” says Bradford, “to inclose their dwellings with a good strong pale, and make flankers in convenient places, with gates to shute, which were every night locked, and a watch kept, and when neede required there was also warding in ye daytime.”

When Secretary De Rasieres visited the settlement in 1627, he found the houses “constructed of hewn planks, with gardens

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also enclosed behind and at the sides with hewn planks, so that their houses and courtyards are arranged in very good order, with a stockade against a sudden attack; at the ends of the streets are three wooden gates. In the centre, on the cross street, stands the governor’s house, before which is a square enclosure upon which four patereros are mounted, so as to flank along the streets.”¹

The common house was used at the beginning as a chapel, but later, when the platform, or fort, on the hill was enlarged, a room built underneath it was used for the purpose. De Rasieres spent Sunday at Plymouth, and described what he saw. “They assembled by beat of drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the captain’s door; they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order, three abreast, and are led by a sergeant with beat of drum. Behind comes the governor in a long robe; beside him, on the right hand, comes the preacher with his cloak on, and on the left hand the captain with his side-arms and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand; and so they march in good order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are constantly on their guard, night and day.”

At Jamestown the summer and early autumn brought sickness and death; at Plymouth the winter occasioned the greatest difficulties of this kind. During the first winter, of the 102 colonists who came over in the Mayflower, almost one-half died from the effects of the voyage, and of the exposure which followed² it. Scurvy and other diseases prevailed, so that in March not more than six or seven well persons remained in the settlement. The living were scarce able to bury the dead. But with the advance of spring the mortality ceased and the sick recovered. During the summer they did not lack for wholesome food, and when the second winter came round, the survivors had become so far acclimated and were so well housed, that a second visitation of disease was avoided. To the comparative healthfulness of the climate, and the dryness, not to say the poverty, of the soil, the survival of the colony was due. Had the climate of New England been so unlike that of old England as was that

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of Virginia, the Plymouth enterprise must have perished in the cradle. The resources of the Pilgrims and of their patrons would have been exhausted by a second experience like that of the first winter. From the nature of the case the number of planters who could be sent to such a colony was limited, while its financial support was beyond comparison weaker than that provided by the London company. But at Plymouth there was no thought of abandoning the settlement, and little or none of the sloth against which Smith and Dale had so long to contend in Virginia. Bradford could proudly refer to those who died the first winter as honest and industrious men, whose lives “cannot be valued at any price.”

Adjacent to the settlement were the common fields of the colony. These were cultivated by the common labor of the planters. The Indian Tisquantum taught them how to plant corn, and they fertilized it with alewives caught by a weir in the town brook. This became the chief product of their husbandry and an important object of trade with the natives. As the agreement, with all the provisions introduced by the adventurers, was signed by the planters in 1621,¹ it is certain that no private labor was permitted save that which was expended on the dwellings and the plots of ground adjacent to them. The entire product, both of husbandry and trade, went into the common store and was used for the support of the colony and in the form of returns to the adventurers. Various trading expeditions were made along the Cape and the shores of Massachusetts bay for the purpose of obtaining corn and beaver, and of opening friendly relations with the Radians whom the pestilence had left scattered through the region. These journeys at first could not be long, because the only craft possessed by the colonists was a shallop; and the returns from them to the adventurers were very slight.

The colony was furnished with European commodities and received additions to its numbers through the system of “supplies.” The Fortune² landed in November, 1621, with about thirty-five colonists, but without additional food

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supplies. It brought Cushman as an agent of the adventurers, and a letter from Weston complaining sharply of the failure of the colonists to sign the agreement. It was doubtless this and the influence of Cushman which procured their signatures and enabled him to take back a copy with him. A cargo of clapboard, with two hogsheads of beaver and otter skins, was returned on the vessel. Site had also to be revictualled by the colonists. Cushman, on reaching England again, acted for a time as the agent of the colony,¹ but on the return of the next ship his place was taken by Edward Winslow, a leading planter, who was followed by Miles Standish, and later by Isaac Allerton.

Owing in part to disasters at sea, it was not until the summer of 1623 that the colony was visited by another supply ship which was intended directly for its relief. The ship Anne and the pinnace Little James, which came at that time, brought ninety-six emigrants, and food for their sustenance till they themselves could raise a crop. The pinnace remained in the colony, and the Anne returned with a cargo of clapboard and furs. The following year the first domestic cattle were brought into the settlement. In this way, throughout the early period of the colony’s existence, connection between it and its sources of supply in Europe was maintained, but unlike Virginia almost no governmental control was exercised by this means.

On the Anne, in 1623, the adventurers sent over the body of colonists known as the “perticulers.” Instructions were sent with them to the effect that they should be given separate allotments of land, but should remain under the government of the colony. Had they been allowed to take up land at a considerable distance from Plymouth, something like the Virginia plantation might have come into existence within this colony; but to avoid dispersion they were allotted habitations within the town. They were excluded from trade, while, in consideration of their exemption from common labor, they were taxed for the support of the governor and other officials. They were also required to share in the common defence and in “such other imployments

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as tend to ye perpetuall good of ye colony.” In the spring of 1623, however, before the “perticulers” arrived, a general desire for the abandonment of the system of common labor and for allotments of land was manifested by the settlers. In a well-known passage the historian of the colony relates how the community system was found to breed confusion and discontent. The strong and able men repined because they must spend their time for others, while in the division of food and clothing they received no more than the weak and inefficient. The aged and graver were ranked in labor and reward with the younger and meaner. Above all, that men’s wives should be compelled to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, and the like, was (loomed a kind of slavery, and many husbands could not well brook it. In short, they considered the system to be contrary to “those relations that God hath set amongst men,” and their experience of it to prove the vanity of the ancient philosophers, who, like Plato, insisted “that the taking away of property . . . would make them happy and flourishing.” After discussion, therefore, the governor consented that for the year 1623 every one should plant corn for himself. The plan proved a success, and a system of barter was established. The next year an acre of land near the town was granted in perpetuity to every person.¹ In this way, when the septennial period was little more than half over, a serious inroad was made on the joint land system.

Moreover, as time passed, the relations between the planters and the adventurers became less satisfactory. Weston, notwithstanding a recent assertion of unending fidelity, abandoned the partnership, and to the surprise and great discomfort of the Plymouth colonists, attempted to found an independent settlement² at Wessagnasett, on the southern side of what was later Boston harbor. This he did under a patent from the Now England council, though all trace of the document has now been lost. The colonists

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which he sent over were vagabonds and adventurers, picked up from the streets of London. They were neither properly furnished with supplies, nor informed concerning the coasts where they were to settle. Trade and fishing was their errand, and speedy returns were the desire of their employers. But recklessness and the pressure of hunger in due time involved them in difficulties with the Indians, and at the close of the first winter, 1622-1623, the settlement was abandoned. Throughout its brief existence it was dependent on Plymouth for support and protection, though planted with no friendly purpose.

The adventurers who, after the retirement of Weston, remained in partnership with the planters at Plymouth did not agree among themselves.¹ Severe losses were suffered and debts were incurred. The planters desired that the Leyden congregation should be brought over at the common expense, but the adventurers were opposed to doing this. From a commercial standpoint the enterprise was not a success; and the complaints of the adventurers naturally irritated the planters, who were stoutly contending against great difficulties. Many who were sent over as colonists were in character not acceptable to the planters, and it would have been strange had they been so. Recriminations early became mutual,² and so divergent were their respective interests and policies that events tended inevitably toward a dissolution of the partnership. By that means alone could the colony attain the freedom to pursue the natural course of its development.

But meantime events had occurred, resulting from their choice of a location for the colony north of the fortieth parallel, which made the planters tenants of the Now England council. As soon as it became known where the colony was situated, John Pierce procured a deed of grant from the council. It was dated³ June 1, 1621, and was issued to Pierce and his associates, who were the adventurers and planters.

This, Thomas Weston wrote, was better than their former

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charter, “and with less limitation.”¹ However that may have been, it contained simply a grant of land, in amount proportional to the number of permanent settlers, with liberty to trade with the neighboring Indians, to hunt and fish in any places not inhabited by the English, and to import goods and products into England or elsewhere, subject to English duties. No attempt was made to bound the grant or to specify its location otherwise than by the statement that the land taken up should not lie within ten miles of any other English settlement, unless the two were on opposite sides of some large navigable river. Provision was made for the payment to the council of a quitrent of two shillings per hundred acres. The patentees were temporarily granted the power to issue such ordinances as were necessary “for their better government,” and to put them into execution through elected officers. They were also promised that, if after seven years the request was presented, the grantees should be incorporated with some fit name and receive additional powers of government; but how this could be legally effected without a royal charter does not appear. Before a year had passed Pierce obtained for himself in joint interest with his associates another patent; but on the same day, April 20, 1622, he surrendered it and secured in its place a “deed pole,” which was drawn on behalf of Pierce himself, his associates, heirs, and assigns.² By this step, surreptitiously taken, Pierce apparently intended to transform his trusteeship into a proprietorship. Bradford states, “he mente to keep it to him selfe and glow them what he pleased, to hold of him as tenants, and sue to his courts as chiefe Lord.” “But ye Lord marvelously crest him,” for in the ship Paragon he was twice wrecked, and his losses were so heavy that he had to assign to the adventurers the patent he last procured.³ As assigns of Pierce the associates enjoyed, till 1629, all the rights to which he had been entitled.

But from the proprietary relations, loose though they might

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be, and from the more onerous communal system, the planters desired to free themselves. As soon as the colony had attained sufficient resources and economic independence to make it possible, negotiations with a view to separation were begun. Early in 1627 Isaac Allerton, who had been appointed agent by the planters, brought from England an offer of the adventurers to sell all their claims to the land and other property connected with the colony for £1800.¹ The offer was accepted by the planters, and eight of the chief among them bound themselves on behalf of the whole body to pay the debt. These eight were known as “the undertakers.” The period during which the joint land system was to be maintained had expired; and since the settlers were so strongly opposed to it, it naturally disappeared after the partnership had been dissolved. As soon as it had been decided to accept the proposal of the adventurers, “ye company” was called together, and it was determined to receive among the active and responsible sharers in the enterprise all heads of families and all young men who were “able to governe themselves with meete discretion, and their affairs so as to be helpfull to ye common-welth.”² Then it was resolved to divide the tillable land near the town among the heads of families and the able young men.³ This was done by lot, the poorer land and the meadow remote from the town being left common. At the same time the common stock of domestic animals was divided. In 1633, owing to the increased demand for hay caused by the exportation of corn and cattle, the meadow was also divided.⁴ Thus joint landholding as a system disappeared in the town and colony of Plymouth. There was another side to the transaction in the spring of 1627. Not only was the offer of the adventurers accepted and the arable divided, but the eight colonists who had undertaken to pay the £1800 associated with themselves all the heads of families and single young men just mentioned, in joint responsibility for the payment not only of

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the debt due the adventurers, but also of the other debts of the colony, then amounting to £600.¹ In order to procure the resources needed for this, it was resolved to carry on the trade of the colony for six years on a joint stock basis, the colonists as a whole forming the company. Each single man was offered one share, and each head of a family as many shares as there were persons in his family, with the possibility that some would ultimately be disposed of to meritorious servants. Those who took these shares were known later as the “purchasers or old-comers.”² With them were associated four of the old adventurers, who retained an interest in the trade of the colony. Isaac Allerton was employed as the agent of the “purchasers,” at the head of whom, in the capacity both of managers and of responsible members of the company, stood “the undertakers.” The last half of Bradford’s history is filled with the details of the trading operations of “the undertakers,” and of the independent course which was run by Allerton. It was by them that the patents for land on the Kennebec river were obtained, and two trading posts established, one at Fort Popham and the other on the site of the modern Augusta.³ That enterprise occasioned the planting of the post on Penobscot bay, and the independent undertaking of Allerton at Machias.⁴ In 1633 the trading post on the Connecticut was established. Of these posts the only one which continued long and was governed as a dependency of the colony was that on the Kennebec. Business relations between “the undertakers” and the four English partners continued until 1642,⁵ when a final settlement was effected, though the last of the debts of the colony arising from its trading operations were not paid until four years later.

Before Plymouth, by the process just traced, emerged from its original state as a proprietary plantation and became a corporate colony, the New England council had attempted

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to establish a government within its vast domains. The issue of Gorges’s Briefe Relation, to which reference has already been made, was a step preparatory to this. The extant records¹ of the council, a part of which cover certain months of 1622 and 1623, show that it was then striving to secure the payment of the subscriptions of £100 each which had been promised by the patentees, to regulate fishing along its coasts, to encourage private voyages and colonizing enterprise, and to build a ship of its own. In November, 1622, a royal proclamation² was issued at the request of the council, forbidding all persons to trade with the natives or visit the coast between the fortieth and forty-eighth parallels without its license, on penalty of forfeiture of vessel and cargo. The license fee for fishermen, agreed upon by the council, was “five fishes out of every hundred.” Certain men might be left at the fishing stations while the vessels were marketing their cargoes, with supplies sufficient to enable them to continue the business.³ Both the proclamation and the regulations of the council for enforcing it should be posted on the mainmast of every ship engaged in the fishing industry along the New England coast. In the new charter which it was proposed to secure, the monopoly of the sea was, if possible, to be continued,⁴ while socage tenure was to be abandoned and a military tenure substituted, with the power to create titles of honor and precedency.

As another and a most important step toward enforcing its monopoly, the council commissioned Robert Gorges, second son of Sir Ferdinando, as lieutenant-general of New England,⁵ and a grant of land was made to him extending about ten miles along the coast and thirty miles inland.⁶ Captain Francis West was appointed admiral for one voyage with Captain Thomas Squibb as his assistant. West was sent out in advance of Gorges. It was partly in order to

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fit out the lieutenant-general, that repeated and stringent orders were issued from the council for the payment of arrearages by patentees. But there were few favorable responses. Even threats to strike the names of patentees from the lists failed to move the courtiers who had given their names to the enterprise at the outset chiefly because their political influence was needed in its behalf. A loan of £100,000 was offered by certain merchants, but this had to be “respited in regard of the difficulty of finding security.” The vessel which was building for the transportation of Robert Gorges had to be mortgaged in order to procure money with which to pay for her equipment. Owing to neglect in the payment for shares, the membership of the council was not full. Of the forty required by the charter scarcely more than twenty had paid up. Rarely did more than half a dozen members attend its meetings, and the only two who were regularly present were Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Dr. Barnabee Gooch. Though the council was located at Plymouth, its meetings were held at some place in London. The meetings were not called general courts, and were not such, for this corporation had no generality. There were no ordinary courts. The only executive offices mentioned were a president, whose title was later changed to that of governor, a treasurer, clerk, and auditors, though committees were occasionally appointed to facilitate business. Inasmuch as membership and attendance never approximated to the proportions suggested by the charter, the council was much like a board of proprietors—like that body which later founded the two Carolinas. Gorges always directed its policy, and for a time was its official, as well as its real, head. During the discussion of a new patent in 1622, it was even proposed to change the grant into a proprietorship. “Not to make a corporation,” it was said, “but to take the land to us and our heirs.” When, ten years later, the question of a new patent came up again, it was agreed that a copy of the charter for Maryland, recently granted to Lord Baltimore, should be given to Sir Henry Spelman for his use in preparing the draft.¹ The

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grants made by the council were in the nature of feudal principalities.

A reason prominently urged by the adventurers in explanation of the failure to pay in their shares, was this, that they did not know what they were to receive for their money. To meet this difficulty, it was resolved by the council to allot its domains among the patentees, and to mark out the allotments on a map so that they could be clearly seen. A drawing of the lots took place at Greenwich in the presence of the king, on a Sunday in June, 1623. But though the territories to be disposed of were large enough to make respectable kingdoms of the mediæval type, only eleven out of the twenty patentees took interest enough to be present. Twenty lots of two shares each were drawn, so that by a series of assignments of the extra shares, forty adventurers—if so many should pay up—might receive grants. Of the region between the Saint Croix and Buzzards bay, as shown in Sir William Alexander’s map—which was used for the purpose—the Earl of Arundel and Sir Ferdinando Gorges drew the easternmost shares. The Mount Desert region was drawn by Sir Robert Mansell, and that of Casco bay by the Earl of Holdernesse. A part of what later became southern New Hampshire fell to Buckingham, and Cape Ann to the Earl of Warwick. Boston harbor and its adjacent territory went to Lord Gorges, and Cape Cod to Dr. Gooch. Twenty shares in all were marked on the map.

Within a few weeks after this division of New England on paper, Robert Gorges sailed for America to assume the governor generalship over the entire domain of the council. A council was appointed to assist him, consisting of the admiral, Captain Francis West, Christopher Lovett, and the governor of Plymouth ex officio. He received a commission giving authority in civil and criminal matters. He was also accompanied by two clergymen of the English Church, and by a small number of mechanics, farmers, and traders.¹ But these were not enough to found a colony, while they were absurdly inadequate to the task of enforcing

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submission among the scattered settlers and of regulating the doings of the fishermen who had their rendezvous at points on the eastern coast. Gorges landed in New England early in the autumn and remained over winter in the settlement which had recently been abandoned by Weston’s men. In the spring he returned to England in disgust. Thomas Weston was at the time a fugitive in New England, having fled from home under a charge of fraudulently exporting to the continent a quantity of ordnance and munitions which he had procured under the false pretence that they were for use in his American colony. During Gorges” sojourn in New England, with the aid of Governor Bradford of Plymouth he had charged Weston with his offence and had brought him into submission. But beyond this Gorges accomplished nothing. The few settlers whom he left behind abandoned Wessagussett and sought more favorable locations about Massachusetts bay, where they were found by the Puritans on their arrival four or five years later. Young Gorges himself died not long after his return to England, leaving the territorial claim which had arisen from his unimproved grant to his brother, from whom it passed to John Oldham and Sir William Brereton.¹ This, with a few scattering farms, was all that survived of the attempt of the New England council to enforce its monopoly over trade and fishing, and to found a great proprietary province in which the Anglican ritual should be the only form of worship legally recognized.² New Plymouth was thus enabled to pursue its course practically unhindered. The fisheries remained open to Englishmen, notwithstanding the monopolistic clause in the charter of 1620.

Since the plans of Sir Ferdinando Gorges to increase the resources of the council did not succeed, and since no steps were taken by those adventurers who had received allotments

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in 1623 to improve them or even to take out patents for them, all that could be done by the council was to grant its domain in parcels to such as would undertake to found private or subordinate public plantations. It was too weak to directly colonize or govern. Substantially all that remains of its history, except its final dissolution, is to be found in the catalogue of its grants; and in the making of them it ignored the allotment of 1623. Of the grants the largest number were made in favor of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason, with their heirs and associates. They were issued at dates extending through almost the entire life of the council. Mason, however, did not become a member of the council until 1632, and his activity in that body was closed by his death in 1635. The Earl of Warwick was then president, but he soon ceased to attend the meetings. Repeated efforts were made, though in vain, to procure from him the seal of the company. It was then proposed that the number of the council should be filled; that all patents should be called for, perused, and confirmed, if the council saw fit; that a surveyor should be sent over to set the bounds of every grant that had been made, and that other steps should be taken to uphold the monopoly of the council, and to regulate affairs within its domain. But no effective measures were taken to execute these plans.

The earliest grant to Mason was the territory, named Mariana, which lay between the Naumkeag or Salem river and the Merrimac, and which extended inland to the head of the first-mentioned stream. This patent was issued March 9, 1622. On August 10, 1622, to Gorges and Mason jointly was granted the region between the Merrimac and Kennebec rivers, and extending sixty miles inland. This was to be known as the Province of Maine. On December 30, 1622, the grant to Robert Gorges, already referred to, was made. On November 7, 1629, that part of the region already conveyed to Gorges and Mason jointly which lay between the Merrimac and Piscataqua rivers, was granted to John Mason. It was his intention to call this New Hampshire, from the county in England where he had long resided.

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On November 17, 1629, the so-called Laconia grant was issued. This purported to convey to Gorges, Mason, and associates the territory bordering Lake Champlain—called in the grant, “the river and lake or rivers and lakes of the Iroquois,”—and extending ten miles south and east therefrom, and thence westward halfway to Lake Ontario and northward to the river Saint Lawrence. The patentees were also authorized to select a tract of one thousand acres on the sea-coast, where they should find one unoccupied. The peculiar location of this grant originated from the supposition that the Piscataqua river had its source in Lake Champlain, and that the fur trade could be prosecuted along its course with the nations of the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence, the central trading post of the company being located on a thousand-acre tract near the mouth of the Piscataqua. The fact that two mountain chains and a river valley intervened between the two sections of this grant was of itself enough to defeat its purpose. On November 3, 1631, the Laconia patentees received from the council, under the name of the Pescataway Grant, a tract including the Isles of Shoals and territory on both sides of the Piscataqua river, extending on the northern bank a distance of thirty miles inland. On April 22, 1635, the share of Mason in the final division of the domain of the New England council was confirmed to him, and the confirmation was entered on the minutes of the council. This comprised the territory between the Salem and Piscataqua rivers and extending sixty miles inland, also the southern half of the Isles of Shoals, and a tract of ten thousand acres lying just east of the mouth of the Kennebec river, to be known as Masonia. To the royal charters, granted, and alleged to have been granted, to Gorges and Mason, reference will be made in another connection.

To the four patents which were granted between 1621 and 1630 to trustees and associates connected with the colony of Plymouth reference has already been made. In the same connection mention should also be made of the indenture of March 19, 1628, to the Massachusetts company. This included the territory between lines drawn three miles

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north of the Merrimac and three miles south of the Charles river, and extending through to the South Sea.

Other miscellaneous grants were: two at the mouth of the Saco river, which developed into the towns of Saco and Biddeford, Maine; the Muscongus Grant, later known as the Waldo Patent, comprising a territory thirty miles square, extending back from the seaboard between the Penobscot and Muscongus rivers; the Lygonia, or Plough Patent, extending along the coast of Maine from Cape Porpoise to Sagadahoc and forty miles inland; the Black Point (;rant of fifteen hundred acres in Scarborough, Maine, to Thomas Cammock; a grant of fifteen hundred acres to Richard Bradshaw, located above the head of the Pejepscot river; to Trelawney and Goodyear, Richmond’s Island and a tract extending from the Black Point Patent to Casco bay or river; to Robert Aldworth and Giles Eldridge, a large tract of land near Pemaquid, increasing in extent with the number of colonists that might settle there; a grant of six thousand acres and one island at Little Harbor, near the mouth of the Piscataqua river, to David Thomson¹ and others; Hilton’s Point on the Piscataqua river, to Edward Hilton; and possibly the so-called Swamscot Patent, covering a tract south of the lower course of the Piscataqua river in New Hampshire. Various other smaller grants were also made.

Only a few of these concessions were perfected, and of only a small number of them was seisin taken. Owing to the ignorance and carelessness of the parties concerned, not only were their bounds in many cases so stipulated as to overlap, but in some cases later grants superseded earlier and unperfected ones. About the mouth of the Piscataqua river was a network of grants, the bounds of which it is not easy to disentangle.

The most important case of an earlier grant being superseded by a later one was that of the patent to Robert Gorges. He had taken possession of it, and settlers brought over by him had been established within it; yet, about four years later, by means not clearly known but declared by the

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Gorges family to have been surreptitious, the Massachusetts company obtained from the council a grant which included all of the Robert Gorges patent and extended far beyond it on three sides. This grant also superseded the Mariana patent of 1622, within which, however, it is scarcely probable that Mason had planted any colonists.

The grants were made according to two models, one for private and another for public plantations. As specified in the regulation of the council of December 1, 1631,¹ the tenants or freeholders of the private plantations should receive a quantity of land, allotted and bounded by the commissioner of survey. The conditions of grant should be such as the council should order, including the stipulation not to alienate without leave, and within five years to settle upon the grant a certain number of people with their cattle and other possessions. Gorges and his associates cherished the plan of developing not only private plantations, but fully organized sub-fiefs, with institutions of government, all subordinate to a governor-generalship of New England. The larger grants should carry with them authority to call an assembly, make by-laws, and appoint magistrates subordinate to the general government of the entire province of New England. A provision was introduced into the patent of Robert Gorges for appeals from all judgments rendered in his grant to “the Court of parliament” hereafter to be in New England, while he was to supply fourteen armed men to the governor-general when ordered so to do. The Mariana, Maine, and New Hampshire grants are examples of the second class, for they expressly mentioned powers of government. Concessions of that sort, however, were invalid from the first, for the council had received no authority from the king to bestow such powers. Before rights of this nature could be legally exercised, confirmation by the king was necessary.

The smaller grants, or private plantations, correspond to those established in Virginia by the London company, and were in plan fundamentally like Plymouth in early days. The indenture to David Thomson provided for a partnership

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between him and three merchants named in the document, and required that for five years their land and trade should be organized as a joint stock. Thomson should go in person to Piscataqua, taking with him men and supplies furnished by the merchants; buildings should be erected, and trading, fishing, and farming begun as a joint enterprise. If Thomson, however, should not bear his share of the expense, which was three-fourths of the whole, the merchants might employ ships and fish independently. At convenient intervals, beginning with the close of a five-year period, sections of the land should be divided in the proportion of three-fourths to Thomson and one-fourth to his partners, while the profits should also be divided in the same ratio. It was a small enterprise; not more than ten persons were probably concerned in it. The only woman known to have been in the settlement was the wife of Thomson himself. But it was a typical example of a large group of settlements of that class in early New England. The partnership was dissolved at the close of the five-year period,¹ and Thomson removed to an island in Boston harbor.

The Laconia company was a private association formed for trading and fishing. By joint contributions it furnished and sent over in 1630 the bark Warwick, of eighty tons” burden. She brought a governor of the settlement and a factor. They took possession, and later the company became the owner of the house which Thomson had built and left standing at Odiorne’s Point; perhaps also of a part of his plantation. A larger residence, called “the great house,” and later “Mason Hall,” was built at Strawberry Bank, near the original settlement, by an “artificer” named Chadbourne, who was sent over as an employee of the company. We hear also of Thomas Eyre, one of the company, acting as clerk and accountant, that is, superintendent or manager of the business in England. Besides the plantation at Strawberry Bank, another plantation was formed on the Newichwannock river, where the town of South Berwick, Maine, is now located. At the latter place one or more saw-mills were erected, and lumbering was carried on in

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connection with these. Land was cleared at both places and farm products were raised for the subsistence of the employees of the company. Stock-raising was also developed to an extent. Potash was manufactured. Fishing was carried on along the neighboring coasts, especially off the Isles of Shoals. But at both plantations the beaver trade was the most important form of industry.¹ Ships plied between the settlement and Europe, bringing supplies and carrying products to market. An ill-timed voyage of the Lyon’s Whelp, under Captain John Gibbs, in 1632, resulted in heavy loss to the company. The returns from the plantations were not sufficient to cover this. The route for trade to Lake Champlain was, of course, not discovered, though explorations to the west were attempted. In the summer of 1633 Walter Neale, the governor, returned to England to report, and a few months later the partnership was dissolved. The land and other property of the patentees was divided. As a result of this Gorges and Mason separated; the interests of the one being confined to the north, and those of the other to the south, of the Piscataqua river.

Operations similar to those just described were conducted at Richmond’s island and in the other settlements along the Maine coast. But extended reference to some of these will more appropriately be made under another head.

The last of the plantations of the proprietary type to be described in this connection is the one founded by the Massachusetts company at Salem. This has been reserved till the close, not because it was the latest to be established or because its form at the outset differed materially from that of the other public plantations to which reference has been made, but because of the historic importance which attaches to it. That importance, however, it attained not as a proprietary plantation, but by reason of its development into a corporate colony. Its history appropriately concludes the treatment of the proprietorship in its earliest form, and opens the way for the consideration of the corporate colony. The story of the development of the Massachusetts company

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out of an association of adventurers living in the neighborhood of Dorchester, England, who in 1623 founded a halting-station at Cape Ann, has been many times told. But it has not been brought into proper connection with other related phenomena. The enterprise of the Dorchester fishermen was similar to those started by many others along the New England coast, those of Plymouth included.¹ But in addition to lisping the Dorchester adventurers sent over enough spare men to build rude dwellings, plant corn, and secure other provisions in quantity sufficient to keep them through the winter. During the fishing season they coöperated with the crews in securing the catch. Fresh food was also supplied by them to the crews. Thus it was hoped that a colony would be planted, by means of which the fishing and trading enterprise would be strengthened. Finding the Plymouth people already fishing and trading at Cape Ann under an indenture from Lord Sheffield, the Dorchester men duly secured their permit for the settlement, and Roger Conant was appointed manager or governor. Mr. Lyford is said to have been invited to be the minister of the colony, and John Oldham to trade for them with the Indians. The last two, however, had been expelled from Plymouth. But, as was frequently the case, the departure of the ships which were sent by the associates from England was not well timed. They arrived too late for the fishing season on the New England coast. In two cases this mistake was caused by delays resulting from defective repairs of the vessels. One of the failures was more than made good by a successful catch off Newfoundland, but the profits expected from this were in turn lost as a result of the outbreak of war between England and Spain in 1625, and the inability of the adventurers to successfully market their cargo in France. It was also found that fishermen did not make good husbandmen, and hence that the attempt to found a colony did not succeed. These causes combined to involve these adventurers in debt, and to lead theta in 1626 to abandon the

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enterprise. But fortunately a few of the settlers, among them Roger Conant, were left behind at Cape Ann to care for the cattle through the approaching winter. Some also of the adventurers were unwilling to abandon the enterprise, and conferred with friends in London respecting its prosecution. The lead in this negotiation, if not in the earlier stages of the work, was taken by the Rev. John White, of Dorchester, a clergyman of the established church, but with a strong leaning toward Puritanism and it wide acquaintance among those who held that type of opinion. He congratulated himself much on winning the support of his parishioner John Endicott for the enterprise. Meantime Conant and his friends, dissatisfied with the location at Cape Ann, removed to Naumkeag, a short distance to the west. One of their number was sent to England for supplies.

In March, 1628, the adventurers secured a patent from the New England council for the territory within the bounds already stated. With this land governmental powers in the full and proper sense of the term were not and could not be bestowed. Neither were the grantees¹ incorporated, but the grant was made expressly to them, “their heirs and assigns.” They were made tenants, like any body of proprietors, though, according to the provision of this indenture, they held not of the New England council, but of the crown. Apparently, then, the council, in obedience to the statute Quia Emptores, resigned all its rights of soil and jurisdiction, nod left the patentees face to face with the king.² Indeed, it may be

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supposed that at the time the grantees considered this indenture only as a means of extinguishing the territorial rights of the council, preliminary to the securing of a charter from the crown. A year later the patentees took advantage of their right to associate others with themselves. A number of east-of-England men, among them Sir Richard Saltonstall, Matthew Cradock, Isaac Johnson, George Howard, Increase Nowell, Richard Bellingham, Samuel Vassall, Theophilus Eaton, and William Pynchon, became interested in the enterprise. These men, whether conversant with the London company or not, were at least in political sympathy with Sir Edwin Sandys and his party in that corporation. The result of the impulse which they gave was the procuring of a royal charter in March, 1629, confirming the grant of territory already made and adding thereto full corporate and governmental rights.

It should be noticed that the company of Massachusetts Bay in New England, which was created by this grant, was modelled after the London company organized twenty years before. Provision was made in the charter for a general court, which should meet four times a year during the law terms, and the Easter session of which should be called the court of election. Provision was also made for a governor, deputy governor, and board of eighteen assistants, all of whom should be chosen by the general court. They had powers corresponding to those of the treasurer, his deputy, and the council in the London company. In the Massachusetts Board of assistants we find no suggestion whatever of a royal council, showing that the old combination of 1606 had been entirely outgrown, and that the way had been cleared for the exercise of royal control directly through the privy council or a board of commissioners closely affiliated therewith. The governor, deputy, and assistants were also empowered to meet monthly in a court¹ which in function corresponded with the ordinary court of the London company. In one respect, however, the assistants of the Massachusetts company had a position different from that of the council in

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the London corporation under the charter of 1612; six of them, with the governor or deputy governor, constituted a quorum of the general court, and therefore, according to the common law, must be present whenever business was transacted. Thus the Massachusetts assistants had in the legislative body a distinct place, which did not belong to the Virginia council. All the customary powers were to be exercised by the general court, either directly or through the machinery thus provided. Less elaboration was necessary than in the case of the London company, because the membership¹ of the corporation was by no means as large, and much less business was done. Still we find that the Massachusetts men had their auditors, secretary, treasurer, and special committees. Finally, to the general court of the Massachusetts company, as to that of its progenitor, the power to increase the membership of the body was given. The word “freemen” also made its appearance in the Massachusetts charter as the designation of the members, whereas in the earlier patents for colonization the terms “associates” and “adventurers” had been commonly used.

During that period of the history of the Massachusetts patentees, under the indenture of 1628 and the charter of 1629, with which we are now concerned, they, like the London company, were the joint proprietors of a plantation, the same in external type as those which have already been described. As soon as the indenture was procured, John Endicott was appointed governor of the plantation and was sent out with a small body of colonists. He superseded Conant, and permanently established the settlement at Naumkeag, which was now called Salem. Meantime Matthew Cradock was appointed governor of the company in England. From a letter of his to Endicott, which contains a number of instructions, we learn that one ship had been bought and two others had been hired by the company. These, with possibly a third, would soon sail for the colony,

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carrying between two hundred and three hundred persons respectively, and one hundred head of cattle. Endicott was desired to provide shelter for these new arrivals, and to send the vessels promptly back laden with fish or lumber, with sassafras, sarsaparilla root, sumach, silk-grass, and “aught else that may be useful for dyeing or in physic.” He was also desired to keep a watchful eye on the company’s servants that they might not only lead moral lives, but make a favorable impression on the natives. The massacre in Virginia had certainly made a strong impression, for Endicott was warned to learn, by the mistakes of that colony, not to be too confident of the fidelity of the savages. The coming change in the objects of the colonizing scheme was, however, indicated not merely by the statement that the company intended to send over two ministers, but by the emphasis which was laid on this as the “work of the Lord.” One would scarce expect to find such an expression its that in the letters or records of the London company, but it frequently occurs from the outset in the communications of the Massachusetts patentees.

The records of the company open with a variety of entries relating to the outfit of the vessels just referred to, which sailed for the colony in the spring of 1629. Seeds, roots, provisions, cooking utensils, clothing and arms for one hundred men were to be sent. The question of procuring various artisans for the plantations, as an ironmaster, an engineer and surveyor, an armorer, a carpenter, a fisherman, was considered. Plans were discussed for the production of salt. The contract with Thomas Graves, who undertook to serve the company in the discovery of mines, care of forts, surveying of land, building of dams and sluiceways, and manufacturing, has been preserved. It provided that, if he remained only a year, the cost of his transportation to and from the colony and his support, clothing excepted, while there should be borne by the company, and that he should be paid £5 per month while in New England. If he remained three years, his family should be brought into the colony at the expense of the company, a house should be built, and one hundred acres of land assigned for his use, and his wages

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should be £50 per year.¹ Contracts were also made with a surgeon, physician, and three ministers. The Revs. Francis Higginson, Samuel Skelton, and Francis Bright undertook “to do their true endeavor . . . as well in preaching, catechising, as also in teaching, or causing to be taught the company’s servants and their children, as also the savages and their children.” They with their families were sent on the company’s ships; land and houses were provided, and they received a yearly stipend.

Provision was made that Conant and his men, who were known as the “old planters,” should continue to enjoy their lands, be admitted as planters, and have a share in the common stock. But the raising of tobacco, to which they had committed themselves, was not encouraged by the company and soon was actually prohibited. The reason for this was not only the declining price of the commodity in the European market, but objections to its use. Its sale or use by any servants in the colony, except in limited quantities as a drug, was prohibited. A considerable number of servants were employed by the company, and directions for their management occupy a prominent place in the instructions to Endicott. They were to be distributed into families under competent religious overseers who should keep registers of the work they did. Strict supervision should be kept over their conduct, and corporal punishment or confinement in the house of correction inflicted when necessary. Drones should not be tolerated. “Our desire is to use lenity all that may be, but in case of necessity not to neglect the other, knowing that correction is for the fool’s back.” Swearing and disorders of all kinds, among the free planters as well as the servants, were to be promptly punished.

From the instructions of the company it may be seen that fishing was still prosecuted as a common enterprise, for references occur to the sending of supplies to the fishermen, to the building of a storehouse where their tools and implements might be kept, and to the freighting of vessels with fish for their homeward voyages. Supplies for the building of small vessels were sent to Salem. The manufacture of salt

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was of importance to the colony chiefly because of its usefulness in this industry. But with the transfer of the settlement to Salem and the increase in the number of colonists, agriculture attained predominant importance. It was a principle with this company, as with the London patentees, that Indian claims should be extinguished by some form of purchase, and this over continued to be their rule of action. For a time after the grant of the royal charter, John Oldham, one of the assignees under the Robert Gorges patent, gave the company much annoyance by his insistence that he should have the management of the common stock, and with others should have the right of free trade with the Indians. Free trade with the natives was not allowed to any of the planters, while Oldham’s self-will and his connection with the Gorges interest convinced the Massachusetts company that he was “a man altogether unfit for us to deal with.” Therefore he was left to his own course, and Endicott was warned to settle the agreement with the “old planters,” and to beware how he meddled with Oldham. In order to checkmate any move which the Gorges interest might make, planters were soon despatched southward, and possession was taken of the region which later became Charlestown.

The system of joint land-holding was not instituted at Salem. The planters were under no contract which required it, and in the summer of 1629 an instruction¹ was sent to Endicott to allot to the adventurers in the proportion of two acres for each sum of £50, or fraction or multiple thereof, which was invested in the enterprise. The grantees were given the liberty to build and improve where they pleased, except that a tract should be reserved for a town. A town one-half acre in extent should also be granted to each adventurer who desired it. Planters who had also purchased shares in the common stock should receive fifty acres for each person in their families, while persons other than adventurers who brought families at their own expense into the colony should receive fifty acres for the master of the family and such additional allotments as, “according to their

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charge and quality,” might be provided through special agreement with the company or by the magistrates in the colony. Those who brought or at their own charge sent servants into the colony should receive fifty acres for each of them. No mention is made in the records of the requirement of a quitrent on any of the grants to adventurers, but those who were not such must annually render some suit or service. In case planters should come in groups and desire to settle together, their wish in that respect should be gratified. Provision was made in the scheme for private plantations, and Matthew Cradock, the governor of the company, was a large investor in one of these. Reference is frequently made to the despatch of servants, supplies, cattle, material for ship-building and fishing on his account. On some vessels he sent nearly as much as went on the company’s¹ account. As we have already noticed, the company also had its plantations, which were cultivated by servants and managed by the governor under instructions from England. It thus appears that, before it had been in existence a year, the colony at Salem reached the stage of development which was inaugurated in Virginia by Governor Dale.

Finally, by action of the company, at the close of April, 1629, John Endicott was elected governor of the colony for the ensuing year, and provision was made for a council of thirteen to assist him in its government. Of these seven, including the three ministers, were chosen by the company, while it was ordered that the old planters might choose two more, and the governor and council itself complete the number by appointment. The governor and council should also select a deputy governor, while a secretary and such other officers as were deemed necessary for the government of the colony should be designated by them. Having taken oaths of office, they should meet, the governor or deputy governor always being present, and, guided by instructions, should exercise within the colony the powers of government which the company had received from the crown. The term of office for all magistrates should be one year.

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Thus the structure of Massachusetts as a proprietary province, which the company so managed its estate as to secure a profit therefrom, was completed. That a special religious element, akin to that of Plymouth and manifest in no other plantation, was already beginning to show itself at Salem, will be seen in a later chapter.