[1643-1652 A.D.] because it would not consent to form a part of the jurisdiction of Plymouth. Yet this early confederacy survived the jealousies of the Long Parliament, met with favour from the protector, and remained safe from censure on the restoration of the Stuarts.b

RHODE ISLAND SECURES A CHARTER

Thus excluded from the benefit of the federal union, the inhabitants of Rhode Island and Providence endeavoured to provide for their separate security by conciliating the friendship of the Indians, and the humane and courteous policy which they pursued proved remarkably successful.

The main object of the confederacy was security against their still powerful neighbours, the Indians. They, however, were becoming weaker by contentions among themselves. In 1643 the Narragansets, under the direction of their chief, Miantonomoh, assembling to the number of a thousand warriors, fell suddenly upon the Mohegans, the allies of the English; but they were defeated, and the chief was taken prisoner. His captor, Uncas, conducted him to Hartford, where he was formally tried by "the elders," to whom his case had been referred, and sentenced to die. His English judges might have spared their pains, on this occasion, as it was a common practice among the Indians to kill captives taken in war. Uncas, having received the sanction of his allies, conducted his prisoner beyond the jurisdiction of Connecticut and put him to death. Miantonomoh deserved a better fate. His hospitable treatment of Roger Williams should have insured him the protection of every white man in New England.

In 1644 an act of the Long Parliament gave to Rhode Island, at the instance of Roger Williams, who visited England for the purpose of obtaining it, "a free and absolute charter of civil government." Williams' ancient friendship with Vane was the principal means of his success in this important affair. But the colony was still menaced with dismemberment, by a grant of the council of state, in England, made in 1651 to Coddington, to govern the islands. This difficulty was removed, however, by a second visit of Williams to England, and the integrity of the state was preserved. The active friendship of Vane was still, says Backus," the sheet-anchor of Rhode Island."

About the same time Maine was brought under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. The death of Gorges (March 1st, 1642) in the civil war of England, and the neglect of his heirs to claim their proprietary rights, threw the inhabitants upon their own resources. [In July, 1649, Piscataqua, Georgeana, and Wells formed themselves into a body politic.] Massachusetts offered its protection (May 30th, 1652). Commissioners were sent to settle the government; and notwithstanding the opposition of the governor, Edward Godfrey, the towns severally yielded submission [some only after threats and the appearance of troops] to the powerful state which claimed their allegiance.

NEW ENGLAND DURING THE LONG PARLIAMENT AND THE PROTECTORATE

During the domination of the Long Parliament and the protector, New England, notwithstanding the Puritan opinions of the inhabitants, maintained a neutral position with respect to the contending parties in the mother country, and even declined offering any hostile demonstration towards the Dutch colonies in New York (then called New Netherlands) while war was raging

66

[1652 A.D.] between Great Britain and Holland. Massachusetts declared itself a perfect republic," determined to resist any aggression which might be attempted on behalf either of the king or his opponents. Their agent in England denied the right of parliament to legislate for the colony unless it was represented in the legislature, and was supported in that opinion by Vane and his distinguished friends.

A practice strongly fraught with the character of sovereign authority was adopted, a few years after (1652), when the increasing trade of the colonists with the West Indies, and the quantity of Spanish bullion that was brought through this channel into New England, induced the provincial authorities to erect a mint for the coinage of silver money at Boston. The coin was stamped with the name of New England on one side, of Massachusetts as the principal settlement on the other, and with a tree as the symbol of national vigour and increase. Maryland was the only other colony that ever presumed to coin money, and indeed this prerogative has been always regarded as the peculiar attribute of sovereignty. "But it must be considered," says one of the New England historians, "that at this time there was no king in Israel." In the distracted state of England, it might well be judged unsafe to send bullion there to be coined; and from the uncertainty respecting the form of government which would finally arise out of the civil wars, it might reasonably be apprehended that an impress received during their continuance would not long retain its currency. The practice gave no umbrage whatever to the English government. It received the tacit allowance of the parliament of Cromwell, and even of Charles II during twenty years of his reign.

In 1646 the dissenters from Congregationalism, the established religion of Massachusetts, petitioned the general court for leave to impeach Governor Winthrop before the whole body of his fellow-citizens, on a charge of having punished some of their number for interfering at an election. He was tried and acquitted; and this proceeding was so far from impairing his popularity that he was chosen governor every year after so long as he lived. The petitioners, being reprimanded for their alleged attempt to subvert the fundamental laws of the colony, appealed to the government of England, but without success.

After the abolishment of royalty in England, the Long Parliament sent a mandate to the governor and general court of Massachusetts, requiring the surrender of their charter and the acceptance of a new charter from the existing government. This demand was evaded. The general court, instead of surrendering the patent, transmitted a petition to parliament against the obnoxious mandate, setting forth that "these things not being done in the late king's time, or since, it was not able to discern the need of such an injunction." The intercession of Cromwell in their behalf was also solicited, and his favour, which was uniformly extended to New England, was not found wanting on this occasion.

Cromwell had been desirous in 1651 to present the colonists of Massachusetts with a district in Ireland, which was to be evacuated for their reception; and he also offered them a new home in the fertile island of Jamaica; but both these propositions were respectfully declined. His favour, however, was by no means forfeited by this refusal. His ascendency in England was highly beneficial to the northern colonies. Rhode Island, immediately after his elevation, resumed the form of government which the parliament had recently suspended; Connecticut and New Haven were afforded the means of defence against the Dutch colonists of New York; all the New England states were exempted from the operation of the parliamentary ordinance against trade

[1652-1654 A.D.]

with foreign nations; and both their commerce and their security were promoted in 1654 by the conquest which the protector's arms achieved of the province of Acadia from the French.

PERSECUTION OF THE QUAKERS

The religious dissensions of Massachusetts had not entirely terminated with the expulsion of Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends. The desire of the government to preserve a certain degree of uniformity of opinion was constantly exposing them to new troubles. In 1651 seven or eight persons, under the direction of Obadiah Holmes, professed the Baptist tenets, and seceded from the congregation to which they had been attached. The excesses of Boccold and his followers at Munster, in the previous century, were not yet forgotten; and the sudden appearance of a body of persons professing similar opinions, in the very midst of the Puritans, excited horror and alarm. Admonition and whipping were resorted to as a corrective, and a new law was passed having direct reference to the teachers of Anabaptist doctrines. This severity appears to have occasioned the retirement of many of the Baptists from the colony for a season. Some of them repaired to England, and complained to Cromwell of the persecution they had undergone; but he rejected their complaint, and applauded the conduct of the provincial authorities.

The treatment which the Quakers experienced was much more severe. The peculiar doctrines of the Quakers appear to have been particularly offensive to the Puritans, and the extravagances into which an imperfect understanding of them led some weak-minded persons of the sect may have rendered them proper subjects of confinement or restraint, but certainly did not make them amenable to capital punishment. In July, 1656, two male and six female Quakers arrived in Boston, where the reproach which their sect had incurred by the extravagances of some of its members in England had preceded them, and they were regarded with terror and dislike by the great bulk of the people. They were instantly arrested by the magistrates and examined for what were considered bodily marks of witchcraft. No such indications being found, they were sent out of the jurisdiction and forbidden to return. A law was passed at the same time imposing penalties on every shipmaster who should bring Quakers or their writings into the colony; forbidding Quakers to come, under penalty of stripes and labour in the house. of correction, and adjudging all defenders of their tenets to fine, imprisonment, or exile. The four associated states of New England adopted this law and urged the authorities of Rhode Island to co-operate with them in stemming the progress of Quaker opinions; but the assembly of that colony replied that "they could not punish any man for declaring his opinion."

The penal enactments of the other colonies only inflamed the zeal of those against whom they were directed. The banished persons all returned, except Mary Fisher, who travelled to Adrianople and delivered her testimony to the grand vizir, without molestation, being probably regarded by the Turks as entitled to that reverence which they always accord to insane people. Again the authorities of Massachusetts resorted to imprisonment, flogging, and banishment; and a new law, inflicting mutilation of the ears, was enacted and executed on three individuals. These severities, far from effecting the object of the authorities, brought multitudes of Quakers into the country, whose violent language and extravagant acts were certainly calculated to

[1654-1660 A.D.]

exasperate any quiet and well-ordered community. One of them, named Faubord, conceiving that he experienced a celestial encouragement to rival the faith and imitate the sacrifice of Abraham, was proceeding with his own hands to shed the blood of his son, when his neighbours, alarmed by the cries of the lad, broke into the house and prevented the consummation of this atrocity. Others interrupted religious services in the churches by loudly protesting that these were not the services that God would accept; and one of them illustrated this assurance by breaking two bottles in the face of the congregation, exclaiming, "Thus will the Lord break you in pieces." They declared that the Scriptures were replete with allegory, that the inward light was the only infallible guide to religious truth, and that all were blind beasts and liars who denied it. Some of the female preachers even proceeded to acts which were gross violations of public decency. [They smeared their faces and went naked through the streets.]

"Exasperated," says Grahame,c "by the repetition and increase of these enormities, and the extent to which the contagion of their radical principle was spreading in the colony, the magistrates of Massachusetts at length, in the close of the year 1658, introduced into the assembly a law denouncing the punishment of death upon all Quakers returning from banishment. This legislative proposition was opposed by a considerable party of the colonists; and various individuals, who would have hazarded their own lives to extirpate the opinions of the Quakers, solemnly protested against the cruelty and iniquity of shedding their blood. It was at first rejected by the assembly, and finally adopted by the narrow majority of a single voice.

In the course of the two following years this barbarous law was carried into execution on three separate occasions-when four Quakers, three men and a woman, were put to death at Boston. It does not appear that any one of these unfortunate persons had been guilty of the outrages which the conduct of their brethren in general had associated with the profession of Quakerism. Oppressed by the prejudice which had been created by the frantic conduct of others, they were adjudged to die for returning from banishment and continuing to preach the Quaker doctrines. In vain the court entreated them to accept a pardon on condition of abandoning forever the colony from which they had been repeatedly banished. They answered by reciting the heavenly call to continue there, which on various occasions, they said, had sounded in their ears, in the fields and in their dwellings, distinctly syllabling their names, and whispering their prophetic office and the scene of its exercise. When they were conducted to the scaffold, their demeanour evinced the most inflexible zeal and courage, and their dying declarations breathed in general the most elevated and affecting piety.

These executions excited much clamour against the government; many persons were offended by the representation of severities against which the establishment of the colony itself seemed intended to bear a perpetual testimony, and many were touched with an indignant compassion for the sufferings of the Quakers, that effaced all recollection of the strong disgust which the principles of these sectaries had heretofore inspired. The people began to flock in crowds to the prisons and load the unfortunate Quakers with demonstrations of kindness and pity. The magistrates at first attempted to combat the censure they had provoked, and published a vindication of their proceedings, for the satisfaction of their fellow citizens and of their friends in other countries, who united in blaming them; but at length the rising sentiments of humanity and justice attained such general and forcible prevalence as to overpower all opposition.

[1660 A.D.]

On the trial of Leddra, the last of the sufferers, another Quaker, named Wenlock Christison, who had been banished with the assurance of capital punishment in case of his return, came boldly into court with his hat on, and reproached the magistrates with shedding innocent blood. He was taken into custody, and soon after brought to trial. Summoned to plead to his indictment, he desired to know by what law the court was authorised to put him on the defence of his life. When the last enactment against the Quakers was cited to him, he asked who empowered the provincial authorities to make that law, and whether it was not repugnant to the jurisprudence of England? The governor very inappositely answered that an existing law in England appointed Jesuits to be hanged. But Christison replied that they did not even accuse him of being a Jesuit, but acknowledged him to be a Quaker, and that there was no law in England that made Quakerism a capital offence. The court, however, overruled his plea, and the jury found him guilty. When sentence of death was pronounced upon him, he desired his judges to consider what they had gained by their cruel proceedings against the Quakers. "For the last man that was put to death," said he, "here are five come in his room; and if you have power to take my life from me, God can raise up the same principle of life in ten of his servants, and send them among you in my room, that you may have torment upon torment."

The magnanimous demeanour of this man, who seems to have been greatly superior in understanding to the bulk of his sectarian associates, produced an impression which could not be withstood. The law now plainly appeared to be unsupported by public consent, and the magistrates hastened to interpose between the sentence and its execution. Christison and all the other Quakers who were in custody were forthwith released and sent beyond the precincts of the colony; and as it was impossible to prevent them from returning, only the minor punishments of flogging and reiterated exile were employed. Even these were gradually relaxed in proportion as the demeanour of the Quakers became more quiet and orderly; and in the year after the restoration of Charles II, the infliction of flogging was suspended by a letter from the king to Governor Endicott and the other magistrates of the New England settlements, requiring that no Quakers should thenceforward undergo any corporal punishment in America; but if charged with offences that might seem to deserve such severity, they should be remitted for trial to England. Happily the moderation of the provincial government was more steady and durable than the policy of the king, who retracted his interposition in behalf of the Quakers in the course of the following year. But the Quakers no longer needed the protection of the king. The attitude of the provincial government now guaranteed their security.

The persecution which was thus happily closed had not been equally severe in all the New England states; the Quakers suffered most in Massachusetts and Plymouth, and comparatively little in Connecticut and New Haven. It was only in Massachusetts that the inhuman law inflicting capital punishment upon them was ever carried into effect. At a subsequent period, the laws relating to "vagabond Quakers" were so far revived that Quakers disturbing religious assemblies, or violating public decency, were subjected to corporal chastisement. But little occasion ever again occurred of executing these severities, the wild excursions of the Quaker spirit having generally ceased, and the Quakers gradually subsiding into a decent and orderly submission to all the laws except such as related to the militia and the support of the clergy; in their scruples as to which, the provincial legislature, with corresponding moderation, consented to indulge them.