furnish the means for a new expedition, and the parties purchasing from the Plymouth Company a tract of land-which included all the coast from three miles north of the Merrimac River to three miles south of the Charles River, and in the interior from the borders of the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific-sent out their first body of emigrants, who, on arriving in Massachusetts, were cordially greeted and assisted by those who had gone before them to New-Plymouth; and in the year of their arrival, 1628, they laid the foundations of Salem. It was on the 4th of March in this year that the Puritans in England obtained for their exiled brethren in Massachusetts a charter from Charles the First, giving them legal authority to occupy the territory in which they had formed their settlements in America. By this charter the settlers were incorporated into a body politic, empowered to occupy, cultivate, or dispose of the soil they had purchased, and to govern the people who should settle on it. Among the patentees were Sir Richard Salstonstall, of an ancient Northamptonshire family, one of whose descendants, bearing the same name, is the present mayor of Salem (1838); and Samuel Vassal, afterward member of Parliament for the City of London, and distinguished for his patriotic opposition to the arbitrary collection of the ship-money tax in England. A monument was erected to the memory of this individual in Boston, by his greatgrandson, from which it appears that he was the son of Sir John Vassal, who, in Elizabeth's time, fitted out at his own cost, and commanded in person, two ships of war against the Spanish armada. In a note to Mr. Graham's excellent History of America, he says, "The son, exerting himself as strenuously against domestic tyranny as the father had done against foreign invasion, was deprived of his liberty, and of the greater part of his fortune, by the Court of Star Chamber. The Long Parliament voted him upward of £10,000 as compensation for his losses, and resolved that his personal sufferings should be still farther considered: 'But the rage of the times,' says his epitaph, and the neglect of proper application since, have left to his family only the honour and vote of that resolution."" Such is the fate of those who are oppressed and plundered for their advocacy of popular rights, and such the hopelessness of ever obtaining justice or redress from either the Parliament or the people! In the following year, 1629, on the first of May, a squadron of vessels left England, containing 350 emigrants, who were almost wholly Puritans and non-conformist ministers. The object of their voyage being to escape from religious persecution to an asylum of greater liberty, their time at sea was devoted chiefly to religious exercises; and the crews, touched by their enthusiasm, became as devout as the passengers themselves. Their voyage was happy and prosperous, and they reached Salem in safety on the 24th of June. RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE.-CHARTER MODIFIED. 299 They had scarcely landed before the whole body, including the previous settlers and the new emigrants, united in a solemn league and covenant, and formed a social contract, by which they undertook to dedicate their future lives to God, and the mutual aid and comfort of each other. There is every reason to believe they were sincere; but such were the crude and imperfect notions of religious liberty that existed at that period, even among men who had fled from religious persecution themselves, that in the very same year in which this solemn league and covenant was made, they banished two brothers, named Browne, who were among the original patentees, for merely dissenting from the model of church-government which the covenanters had framed! But this is, perhaps, the less to be wondered at, when it is remembered that even the great Lord Bacon, in his treatise "De Unitate Ecclesiæ," expresses his conviction that "no government could be upheld without uniformity of religious opinions," and that "toleration to sectarians would be impolitic and unsafe." And in the History of New-Hampshire it is stated, that in a work published in that state in 1645, a Christian minister thus expressed himself: "It is said that men ought to have liberty of conscience, and that it is persecution to debar them of it. I can rather stand amazed than reply to this. It is an astonishment that the brains of men should be parboiled in such impious ignorance!" In August of this year, 1629, a most important change took place in the condition of New-England, as on the 29th of that month the charter of Massachusetts, which before made the governing power of the colony to reside in England, was so modified as to transfer this ruling power to America; so that, according to the language of the historian, "an English corporation, appointed by its charter to reside in London, resolved itself, by its own act, into an American corporation, and transferred its residence to Massachusetts." To this the king not only made no objection, but gave his public assent by a proclamation, in which he gave his royal commendation to the provincial government, and promised it all the aid it would require for its comfort and prosperity. The motive of the king's conduct is supposed to have been a great desire to rid himself of the presence of the Puritans in England, by increasing the facilities and temptations of their emigration to the New World; but, whatever was the motive, the effect was to place the rights and liberties of the settlers in New-England on a much firmer basis than they had ever reposed on before, and to make this a most important epoch in their history. From this period the work of organization went on with spirit, vigour, and efficiency. A general assembly appointed John Winthrop as their first governor and Thomas Dudley as their first deputy-governor, and these were assisted by eighteen councillors, which formed the first provincial Legislature of New-England. This act inspired so much confidence in the future stability of the colony, that in the following year, 1630, no less than 1500 new settlers arrived, in a fleet of 17 ships, which reached Salem on the 6th of July; and among these were many individuals of wealth and distinction, who had embarked with a determination " to follow truth and liberty into á desert, rather than to enjoy all the pleasures of the world under the dominion of superstition and slavery at home." They were not so pleased, however, with the situation of Salem as they expected to have been, and began to look around in the neighbourhood for some more agreeable locality. They fixed on several spots around the bay, where more eligible positions were easily found; and thus was planted the first beginnings of Boston, of Charlestown, of Dorchester, and of Roxbury, all within a few miles of each other, and all since so much increased, that Boston may be regarded as one of the most impor tant and influential of all the larger cities of America, while the others are considerable towns, either as suburbs or places in its vicinity. The first year of the new emigrants was full of disaster, from the severity of the winter, the insufficiency of shelter and accommodation, and the prevalence of a pestilential disease, which swept away many by death; but when spring returned, and new supplies arrived from England, they were enabled to revive and attend to their affairs. Even at this early period, their first act, like that of their predecessors, was one of religious intolerance; for they passed a law that no man should be a freeman, or have any share in the government, who did not conform in all respects to the ecclesiastical opinions and discipline which they chose to set up! A curious instance is mentioned of the influence of the clergy in the province at this time by Hutchinson, who says that the use of tobacco was prohibited under a severe penalty; and in some of the popular books of the colony its smoke was compared to "the fumes of the bottomless pit." Soon after this, however, some of the clergy themselves having acquired a taste for the obnoxious weed, their influence was sufficient to get an order from the local government withdrawing the prohibition and penalty, and leaving tobacco and all its consumers unmolested. In 1634 the first representative assembly was formed in Massachusetts, the election being by universal suffrage of the freemen; and the representatives, in conjunction with the councillors and governor, forming the Legislature of the province. About this time Providence was founded by Roger Williams, one of the ministers of Salem; Connecticut by Hooker, one of the ministers of Boston; and New-Haven by Nicholas Eaton, a man of large fortune from England, and John Davenport, an eminent Puritan minister. In 1637 a war occurred between the colonists and the Pequod MEETINGS OF FEMALES. EARLY EMIGRANTS. 301 Indians; and the influence of the clergy may be judged of from this custom, that when a commander-in-chief of the military force was appointed, his truncheon was delivered to him by one of the clergy, and with each regiment was placed a chaplain, who in all circumstances of doubt or danger was instructed to pray for Divine direction. The manner in which religion was interwoven in the very texture of society at this time is illustrated by the fact, that it was then the practice in Boston for the inhabitants to assemble together in weekly meetings, to discuss the merits and doctrines of the sermons delivered on the preceding Sabbath. It was the privilege of men only, however, to attend these meetings; but a lady of the colony, Mrs. Hutchinson, the wife of one of the leading members of the community, feeling aggrieved at the exclusion of women from these debates, determined to assert the rights and privileges of her own sex, and established meetings for them, at which she presided. Her followers and admirers increased so rapidly that they soon outnumbered the exclusive assemblies of the males; and at length Mrs. Hutchinson attained to such influence and exercised such power, that the decisions by her authority were fatal to the reputation of those against whose lives or doctrines they were directed. In the language of the historian, "the matrons of Boston were transformed inte à synod of slanderous praters, whose inquisitorial deliberations and audacious decrees instilled their venom into the innermost recesses of society; and the spirits of a great majority of the tizens being in that combustible state in which a feeble spark will suffice to kindle a formidable conflagration, the whole colony was inflamed and distracted by the incontinence of female spleen and presumption."* In 1638 another numerous supply of emigrants arrived in NewEngland; and in a second fleet about to sail, but which was stopped by an order of council from the king, were embarked, among others, the republicans Hazelrig, Hampden, Pym, and Oliver Cromwell. The king, indeed, became so alarmed at the growing strength and numbers of the Puritans in the Western World, that he demanded the surrender of the patent or charter of Massachusetts, which would most probably have been enforced but for the breaking out of the civil war, which almost immediately followed. At this period, 1640, there were about 4000 families in New-England, and more than 100 ministers of religion. These had founded fifty towns and villages, and erected more than thirty churches and dwellings for the ministers: and all this in addition to the expenditure of upward of 200,000 pounds in equipping the vessels and conveying the emigrants by whom this colony was formed. The feelings by which these people were knit together were such as to make them all with one accord abjure luxurious habits, and enjoin, by legislative sanction and personal example, the constant * Graham's Hist. of the U. S. of North America, vol. i., p. 252. practice of mutual succour and reciprocal aid. The men of larger fortune assisted those of humbler means; and these duties to each other were enforced from the pulpit in such addresses as these: "Remember, brethren," says one of the ministers of New-Plymouth, Robert Cushman, "remember that ye have given your names and promises one to another here to cleave together. You must then seek the wealth of one another, and inquire, as David did, How liveth such a man? how is he clad? how is he fed? He is my brother, my associate, and we ventured our lives together. Is his labour harder than mine? Surely I will ease him. Hath he no bed to lie on? I have two: I'll lend him one. He is as good a man as I, and we are bound to each other, so that his wants must be my wants, and his welfare my welfare."* By Notwithstanding the benevolent spirit in which this advice was conceived, there was yet existing in the community so much of intolerance and bigotry as greatly to overbalance the good which a right estimate of religious privileges would have ensured. one of the laws of Massachusetts it was enacted, "that all strangers professing the Christian religion who shall flee to this country from the tyramay of their persecutors, shall be succoured at the public charge till some provision can be made for them;" and yet, by the same authority, Roman Catholic priests, as well as Quakers, were subjected to banishment and to death if they ventured to return, while the latter were called "a cursed sect," and the severest penalties were imposed on the importation of either the persons or the writings of the Quakes! So rigid were their rules for the observance of the Sabbath, that all persons were forbidden to run, or even to walk, "except reverently to and from church on Sunday," or to profane the day by sweeping their houses, cooking their victuals, or shaving their beards. Mothers were commanded not even to kiss their children on that sacred day! Adultery was punished by death, but fornication by compelling the parties to marry only. Robbery was punished by branding for the first offence, flogging for the second, and death for the third; but if any crime was committed on Sunday, the ear of the culprit was cut off, in addition to the regular penalty for other days in the week. Blasphemy was punished with death, heresy with banishment. Heavy fines were imposed on people for "observing any such day as Christmas ;" and witchcraft and perjury, directed against the life of any one, were punished with death. Gaming was strictly prohibited, and cards and dice were forbidden to be imported. No assemblies for dancing were allowed; and kissing a woman in the street, even by way of honest and friendly greeting, was punished by flogging! Persons wearing a dress which the grand jury should deem above their station, were Belknap's American Biography. |