Volume I Part 2 (1/2)
THE COURT'S ANSWER.
”1. To the first we consent, it _having been the practice of this Court_, in the first place, _to insert in the oath of fidelity required of every householder, to be truly loyal to our Sovereign Lord the King, his heirs and successors. Also to administer all acts of justice in his Majesty's name_.
”2. To the second we also consent, _it having been our constant practice to admit men of competent estates and civil conversation, though of different judgments, yet being otherwise orthodox, to be freemen, and to have liberty to choose and be chosen officers, both civil and military_.
”3. To the third, we cannot but acknowledge it to be a high favour from G.o.d and from our Sovereign, that we may enjoy our consciences in point of G.o.d's wors.h.i.+p, the main end of transplanting ourselves into these remote corners of the earth, and should most heartily rejoice that all our neighbours so qualified as in that proposition would adjoin themselves to our societies, according to the order of the Gospel, for enjoyment of the sacraments to themselves and theirs; but if, through different persuasions respecting Church government, it cannot be obtained, we could not deny a liberty to any, according to the proposition, that are truly conscientious, although differing from us, especially where his Majesty commands it, they maintaining an able preaching ministry for the carrying on of public Sabbath wors.h.i.+p, which we doubt not is his Majesty's intent, and withdrawing not from paying their due proportions of maintenance to such ministers as are orderly settled in the places where they live, until they have one of their own, and that in such places as are capable of maintaining the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d in two distinct congregations, we being greatly encouraged by his Majesty's gracious expressions in his letter to us, and your Honours'
further a.s.surance of his Royal purpose to continue our liberties, that where places, by reason of our paucity and poverty, are incapable of two, it is not intended, that such congregations as are already in being should be rooted out, but their liberties preserved, there being other places to accommodate men of different persuasions in societies by themselves, which, by our known experience, tends most to the preservation of peace and charity.
”4. To the fourth, we consent that all laws and expressions in laws derogatory to his Majesty, if any sect shall be formed amongst us, which at present we are not conscious of, shall be repealed, altered, and taken off from the file.
”By order of the General Court For the jurisdiction of New Plymouth, Per me, NATHANIEL MORTON, _Secretary_.”
”The league between the four colonies was not with any intent, that ever we heard of, to cast off our dependence upon England, a thing which we utterly abhor, intreating your Honours to believe us, for we speak in the presence of G.o.d.”
”NEW PLYMOUTH, May 4th, 1665.
”The Court doth order Mr. Constant Southworth, Treasurer, to present these to his Majesty's Commissioners, at Boston, with all convenient speed.”
The above propositions and answers are inserted, with some variations, in Hutchinson's History of Ma.s.sachusetts, Vol. I., p. 214. The remark respecting the union between the colonies is not on the colony records--it was inserted at the close of the copy delivered to the Commissioners, in conformity to a letter from the Commissioners, written to Governor Prince after they had left Plymouth. The conditions expressed in the answer to the third proposition appeared so reasonable to the Commissioners, that when they afterward met the General a.s.sembly of Connecticut, in April, 1663, their third proposition is qualified, in substance, conformably to the Plymouth reply. (Morton's Memorial, Davis'
Ed., p. 417.)
It is thus seen that there was not the least desire on the part of King Charles the Second, any more than there had been on the part of Charles the First, to impose the Episcopal wors.h.i.+p upon the colonists, or to interfere in the least with their full liberty of wors.h.i.+p, according to their own preferences. All that was desired at any time was toleration and acknowledgment of the authority of the Crown, such as the Plymouth colony and that of Connecticut had practised from the beginning, to the great annoyance of the Puritans of Ma.s.sachusetts.
Several letters and addresses pa.s.sed between Charles the Second and the Pilgrim Government of Plymouth, and all of the most cordial character on both sides; but what is given above supersedes the necessity of further quotations.[15]
It was an object of special ambition with the Government of Plymouth to have a Royal Charter like those of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, instead of holding their land, acting under a Charter from the Plymouth Council (England) and Charles the Second. In his last address to Mr. Josiah Winslow, their Governor promised it to them in most explicit terms; but there was a case of _quo warranto_ pending in the Court of King's Bench against the Puritan Government for the violation of their Charter, which delayed the issuing of a Royal Charter to Plymouth. Charles died soon after;[16] the Charter of the Ma.s.sachusetts Corporation was forfeited by the decision of the Court, and James the Second appointed a Royal Governor and a Royal Commissioner, which changed for the time being the whole face of things in New England.
It, however, deserves notice, that the Ma.s.sachusetts Puritans, true to their instinct of encroaching upon the rights of others, whether of the King or of their neighbours, white or tawny, did all in their power to prevent the Pilgrims of Plymouth--the pioneers of settlement and civilization in New England--from obtaining a Royal Charter. This they did first in 1630, again in the early part of Charles the Second's reign, and yet again towards its end. Finally, after the cancelling of the Ma.s.sachusetts Charter, and the English Revolution of 1688, the agents of the more powerful and populous Ma.s.sachusetts colony succeeded in getting the colony of Plymouth absorbed into that of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay by the second Royal Charter granted by William and Mary in 1692.
”The junction of Plymouth with Ma.s.sachusetts,” says Moore, ”destroyed all the political consequence of the former. The people of Plymouth shared but few favours which the new Government had to bestow, and it was seldom indeed that any resident of what was termed the old colony obtained any office of distinction in the Provisional Government, or acquired any influence in its councils.”[17]
This seems a melancholy termination of the Government of the Pilgrims--a princely race of men, who voluntarily braved the sufferings of a double exile for the sake of what they believed to be the truth and the glory of G.o.d; whose courage never failed, nor their loyalty wavered amidst all their privations and hards.h.i.+ps; who came to America to enjoy religious liberty and promote the honour of England, not to establish political independence, and granted that liberty to others which they earned and had suffered so much to enjoy themselves; who were honourable and faithful to their treaty engagements with the aborigines as they were in their communications with the Throne; who never betrayed a friend or fled from an enemy; who left imperishable footprints of their piety and industry, as well as of their love of liberty and law, though their self-originated and self-sustained polity perished at length, by royal forgetfulness and credulity, to the plausible representations and ambitious avarice of their ever aggressive Ma.s.sachusetts Puritan neighbours.
While the last act of the Pilgrims before leaving the _Mayflower_, in the harbour of Cape Cod, was to enter into a compact of local self-government for common protection and interests, and their first act on landing at New Plymouth was, on bended knees, to commend themselves and their settlement to the Divine protection and blessing, it is a touching fact that the last official act of the General a.s.sembly of the colony was to appoint a day of solemn fasting and humiliation on the extinction of their separate government and their absorption into that of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay.
It was among the sons and daughters of the Plymouth colony that almost the only loyalty in New England during the American Revolution of the following century was found. Most of the descendants of Edward Winslow, and of his more distinguished son, Josiah Winslow, were loyalists during that revolution.[18] In the councils of the mother country, the merits of the posterity of the Pilgrims have been acknowledged; as in her service some of them, by their talents and courage, have won their way to eminence. Among the proudest names in the British navy are the descendants of the original purchaser of Mattapoisett, in Swansey (William Brenton, afterwards Governor of Rhode Island);[19] to the distinguished t.i.tle of one of the English peerage is attached the name of one of the early settlers of Scituate, in the Plymouth colony (William Va.s.sall, who settled there in 1635.)[20]
”In one respect,” says Moore, ”the people of the Old Colony present a remarkable exception to the rest of America. They are the purest English race in the world; there is scarcely an intermixture even with the Scotch or Irish, and none with the aboriginals. Almost all the present population are descended from the original English settlers. Many of them still own the lands which their early ancestors rescued from the wilderness; and although they have spread themselves in every direction through this wide continent, from the peninsula of Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, some one of the family has generally remained to cultivate the soil which was owned by his ancestors. The fishermen and the navigators of Maine, the children of Plymouth, still continue the industrious and bold pursuits of their forefathers. In that fine country, beginning at Utica, in the State of New York, and stretching to Lake Erie, this race may be found on every hill and in every valley, on the rivers and on the lakes. The emigrant from the sandbanks of Cape Cod revels in the profusion of the opulence of Ohio. In all the Southern and South-Western States, the natives of the ”Old Colony,” like the Arminians of Asia, may be found in every place where commerce and traffic offer any lure to enterprise; and in the heart of the peninsula of Michigan, like their ancestors they have commenced the cultivation of the wilderness--like them originally, with savage hearts and savage men, and like them patient in suffering, despising danger, and animated with hope.”[21]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 10: ”The term PILGRIMS belongs exclusively to the Plymouth colonists.” (Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 88, note.)]
[Footnote 11: The only exception was by Prence, when elected Governor in 1657. He had imbibed the spirit of the Boston Puritans against the Quakers, and sought to infuse his spirit into the minds of his a.s.sistants (or executive councillors) and the deputies; but he was stoutly opposed by Josias Winslow and others. The persecution was short and never unto death, as among the Boston Puritans. It was the only stain of persecution upon the rule of the Pilgrims during the seventy years of their separate government, and was n.o.bly atoned for and effaced by Josias Winslow, when elected Governor in the place of Prence.]
[Footnote 12: Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Collections, 3rd Series, Vol.
II., p. 226.]
[Footnote 13: ”The colony of Plymouth included the present counties of Plymouth, Barnstaple, and Bristol, and a part of Rhode Island. All the Providence Plantations were at one time claimed by Plymouth. The boundaries between Plymouth and Ma.s.sachusetts were settled in 1640 by commissioners of the united colonies.” (_Ib._, p. 267.)]