feparatifts, in which clafs the Plymouthians were numbered; but long before they arrived, or even failed, a Doctor Fuller, a deacon of the church at Plymouth, and well verfed in its difcipline, having been fent for on account of a fatal fickness which broke out among the emigrants after their arrival at Salem, had, by his converfation with Captain Endicott, taken off the ill effect of common report, and brought him to think favourably of the outward form of worship efpoufed by the Plymouthians. The influence of the doctor's intercourfe with the Salem fettlers cannot be thought to have been confined to the Captain. When the business of organizing a church was brought forward after the arrival of the counsellors, the matter was frequently canvaffed, and at length it was determined to form it nearly upon the plan of the one at Plymouth, and to invite the latter to be prefent, by their meffengers, at the ordination of the minifters Meffrs. Skelton and Higginson. Notwithstanding cross winds, the Plymouth meffengers were time enough to give the right hand of fellowship, by which ceremony the two churches pro feffed mutual affection and communion. While things were thus fettling on the continent, Mr. Matthew Craddock, the governor in England, proposed at the general court, that for the advancement of the plantation, the encouragement of perfons of worth and quality to tranfplant themfelves and families, and other weighty reasons, the government of the plantation fhould be transferred to its inhabitants, and not be continued in fubordination to the company at London : the matter was debated, and it was agreed, that the perfons present should seriously confider the business against the next general court; it was alfo requested, that they would in the mean while conduct themselves with fuch privacy that the affair might not be divulged. At a month's end they met, and agreed, that the government and patent should be fettled in New-England, if it could be done legally. The advice of council was ordered to be taken, and it was confidered how to execute the projected removal without offending government. 2 On the 20th of October the company, at a general court, proceeding to a new election of officers, who were to repair to and fettle in New-England. They chofe for governor John Winthrop, Efq. of Groton, in Suffolk, a gentleman well known for his piety, liberality, wildom and gravity. The bufinefs of transferring the patent and corporation, and of tak. ing over new fettlers, was profecuted with vigour. This enter produced a general rumour, as its extent and magnitude the number and principles of the perfons engaged in it, opened upon the public. The intentions of the parties being fufpected, and jealoufies arifing concerning them, Governor Winthrop, and other gentlemen, to remove prejudices, conciliate the minds of the difaffected, and recommend themiclves and their expedition to the favourable regards of all ferious Chriftians of the epifcopal perfuafion, addreffed their brethren in and of the Church of England, and afterwards failed from Yarmouth in the Ifle of Wight, to America, April 7, 1630. The company arrived at Salem on June 12, and foon after were in number more than fifteen hundred perfons, from different countries in England. They applied themselves early to the forming of churches; but the Rev. Mr. Cotton, who went from Boston in Lincolnshire, to take leave of his departing friends at Southampton, having told them to advise with the Plymouthians, and to do nothing to offend them, and a precedent exifting in the church at Salem, they difmiffed all the peculiarities of epifcopacy, and preferred the congregational mode in general. However, they had no fettled plan of church difcipline, till after the arrival of Mr. Cotton in 1633, who was confidered as a kind of oracle in both civil and facred matters, and gradually moulded all their church adminiftration, and thus determined the ecclefiaftical conftitution of the colony. From this time New-England began to flourish. Settlements were fuccefsfully enterprized at Charleston, Boston, Dorchefter and other places, so that in forty years from this period, one hundred and twenty towns were fettled, and forty churches were gathered. The Laudian perfecution was conducted with unrelenting feverity; and while it caufed the destruction of thousands in England, proved to be a principle of life and vigour to the infant fettlements in America, Several men of eminence in England, who were the friends and protectors of the Puritans, entertained defigns of fettling in New-England, if they fhould fail in the measures they were pursuing for the establishment of the liberty, and the reformation of the religion of their own country. They folicited and obtained grants in New-England, and were at great pains in fettling them. Among these paten. tees were the Lords Brook, Say and Scal, the Pelhams, the Hampdens, and the Pyms; names which afterwards appeared with great eclat. Sir Matthew Boynton, Sir William Conftaple, Sir Arthur Haflerig, and Oliver Cromwell, were actually upon the point of embarking for New-England, when Arch bishop Laud, unwilling that fo many objects of his hatred fhould be removed out of the reach of his power, applied for, and obtained an order from the court to put a stop to thefe transportations. However, he was not able to prevail fo far as to hinder New-England from receiving vaft additions, as well of the clergy, who were filenced and deprived of their living for non-conformity, as of the laity who adhered to their opinions. It was in the fpring of this year, 1830, that the GREAT CONSPIRACY was entered into by the Indians in all parts, from the Narraganfets round to the eastward, to extirpate the English. The colony at Plymouth was the principal object of this confpiracy: they well knew that if they could effect the deftruction of Plymouth, the infant fettlement at Maffachusetts would fall an eafy facrifice. They laid their plan with much art. Under colour of having fome diverfion at Plymouth, they intended to have fallen upon the inhabitants, and thus to have effected their defign. but their plot was difclofed to the peo- • ple of Charleston by John Sagamore, an Indian, who had always been a great friend to the English. The treacherous defign of the Indians alarmed the English, and induced them to erect forts and maintain guards, to prevent any fuch fatal furprize in future, Thele preparations, and the firing of the great guns, fo terrified the Indians, that they difperfed, relinquithed their defign, and declared themfelves the friends of the English. From the beginning of the colony of Maffachusetts, until the emigration cealed, through a change of affars in England, in 1640, there arrived in two hundred and ninety-eight veffels, about twenty one thousand two hundred fettlers, men, women, and children, or four thousand families, but they did not all confine themselves to the Maffachuletts. Thefe fettlers were no lefs ftrenuous for their own particular rights and advantages than the Plymouthians. When, therefore, the governor and company removed from London to the Maffachuletts, they renounced the appearance of a corporation, and affumed the form of a commonwealth, varying, as it fuited them, from the directions of the charter. The change of place and circumftances prevented their keeping to it in certain inftances, though not in others: but they could eafily fatisfy themselves as to any violations, for "they apprehended themfelves fubject to no other laws or rules of government, than what arofe from nutural reafon and the principles of equity, except any pofitive rules from the word of God."* Perfons of influence among them held, that birth was no neceflary caule of fubjection; for that the fubject of any prince or ftate had a natural right to remove to any other ftate or quarter of the world, when deprived of liberty of confcience, and that upon fuch removal his fubjection ceafed. They called their own a voluntary civil fubjection, arifing merely from a mutual compaft between them and the King, founded upon the charter. By this compact, they acknowledged themfelves bound, fo that they could not be fubje to, or feek protection from, any other prince, neither could make laws repugnant to those of England, &c. but on the other hand, they maintained that they were to be governed by laws made by themselves, and by officers of their own electing.t They meant to be independent of English parliaments, and therefore, when their intimate friends were become leading members in the House of Commons, and they were advised, on account of the great liberty to which King Charles left the parliament, to fend over fome to folicit for them, and had hopes given that they might obtain much, the governor and affiftants, after meeting in council upon the occafion, "declined the motion, on this confideration, that if they should put themselves ander the protection of the parliament, they must then be tubject to all fuch laws as they fhould make, or at least such they might impofe upon them, in which cafe, though they fhould intend their good, yet, it might prove very prejudicial to them." Whatever approbation fuch fentiments may meet with from the friends of liberty, these must regret the inconsistencies to which human nature is fubject, in thofe very perfons whofe experience fhould have taught them, to do unto others, as they would that others fhould have done unto them, when they themselves were fuffering under the relentlefs hand of brary government. But what is man! So carly as the fecond gerral court after the arrival of the governor and company, held My 18, 1631, instead of refolving to admit all the fuitable and erving to a generous participation of their freedom, they pafthe pernicious and difingenuous order, "For time to come, no full be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but fuch Hutchinfon's Letter of December 7, 1762. as are members of fome of the churches within the limits of the fame," They foon after concluded, that none but such should hare in the administration of civil government, or have a voice in any election. Thus a powerful and mifchievous alliance was formed between the churches and the ftate. The afcendency of the clergy was fecured and much increased, for no one could be propofed to the church for a member, unless the minifter allowed it. The minifters were confulted by the general court in all matters of great moment; and nothing was determined in fuch cafes, without a formal reference to them, who, as might be expected, ufed their influence with the people, to procure an approbation of the meafures which they themselves had advifed.t In May, 1634, instead of the freemen's appearing perfonally in the general court, they for the first time fent deputies, to the number of twenty four. This was a variation from the charter, which gave no power to admit reprefentatives. These, with the governor, deputy governor and affiftants, formed the legiflature of the colony, met and voted together in one apartment till March 1644, when it was ordained, that the governor and affistants fhould fit apart; and thus commenced the House of Reprefentatives, as a diftinct body. The general court affumed spiritual jurifdiction. Being church members, they might fuppofe they reprefented the churches, no lefs than the colony. They would approve of no churches after a certain period, March 8, 1636, unlefs they had the approbation of the magiftrates and elders of moft of the churches within the colony, nor would admit to freedom any of their members.They preffed colonial uniformity in religion, till they became perfecutors. Whatever apology may be made for the treatment given to EPISCOPALIANS, BAPTISTS, and QUARERS, the colony cannot be cleared from the charge of perfecuting; that, however, will not juftify thofe who perfecute with reproaches and ill-will the prefent generation, now reprobating the intolerance of their forefathers, which at that period was, more or lefs, the stain of moft religious parties. "It was not peculiar to the Maffachusetts people to think themselves bound in confcience to use the fword of the civil magiftrate to convince, or cut off heretics, that fo Maffachusetts Records, Vol. I. + Hutchinfon's Hiftory, Vol. I. p. 424. Malachusetts Records, in many places. |