Volume I Part 8 (1/2)
THE GOVERNMENT OF Ma.s.sACHUSETTS BAY UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT, THE COMMONWEALTH, AND CROMWELL.
Charles the First ceased to rule after 1640, though his death did not take place until January, 1649. The General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, in their address to the King's Commissioners in September, 1637, professed to offer ”earnest prayers for long life and prosperity to his sacred Majesty and his royal family, and all honour and welfare to their Lords.h.i.+ps;” but as soon as there was a prospect of a change, and the power of the King began to decline and that of Parliament began to increase, the Puritans of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay transferred all their sympathies and a.s.siduities to the Parliament. In 1641, they sent over three agents to evoke interest with the Parliamentary leaders--one layman, Mr. Hibbins, and two ministers, Thomas Weld and Hugh Peters, the latter of whom was as shrewd and active in trade and speculations as he was ardent and violent in the pulpit. He made quite a figure in the civil war in England, and was Cromwell's favourite war chaplain. Neither he nor Weld ever returned to New England.
As the persecution of Puritans ceased in England, emigration to New England ceased; trade became depressed and property greatly depreciated in value; population became stationary in New England during the whole Parliamentary and Commonwealth rule in England, from 1640 to 1660--more returning from New England to England than emigrating thither from England.[73]
The first success of this mission of Hugh Peters and his colleagues soon appeared. By the Royal Charter of 1629, the King encouraged the Ma.s.sachusetts Company by remitting all taxes upon the property of the Plantations for the s.p.a.ce of seven years, and all customs and duties upon their exports and imports, to or from any British port, for the s.p.a.ce of twenty-one years, except the five per cent. due upon their goods and merchandise, according to the ancient trade of merchants; but the Ma.s.sachusetts delegates obtained an ordinance of Parliament, or rather an order of the House of Commons, complimenting the colony on its progress and hopeful prospects, and discharging all the exports of the natural products of the colony and all the goods imported into it for its own use, from the payment of any custom or taxation whatever.[74]
On this resolution of the Commons three remarks may be made: 1. As in all previous communications between the King and the Colony, the House of Commons termed the colony a ”Plantation,” and the colonists ”Planters.” Two years afterwards the colony of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay a.s.sumed to itself (without Charter or Act of Parliament) the t.i.tle and style of ”a Commonwealth.” 2. While the House of Commons speaks of the prospects being ”very happy for the propagation of the Gospel in those parts,” the Ma.s.sachusetts colony had not established a single mission or employed a single missionary or teacher for the instruction of the Indians. 3. The House of Commons exempts the colony from payment of all duties on articles exported from or imported into the colony, _until the House of Commons shall take further order therein to the contrary_,--clearly implying and a.s.suming, as beyond doubt, the right of the House of Commons to impose or abolish such duties at its pleasure. The colonists of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay voted hearty thanks to the House of Commons for this resolution, and ordered it to be entered on their public records as a proof to posterity of the gracious favour of Parliament.[75]
The Ma.s.sachusetts General Court did not then complain of the Parliament invading their Charter privileges, in a.s.suming its right to tax or not tax their imports and exports; but rebelled against Great Britain a hundred and thirty years afterwards, because the Parliament a.s.serted and applied the same principle.
The Puritan Court of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay were not slow in reciprocating the kind expressions and acts of the Long Parliament, and identifying themselves completely with it against the King. In 1644 they pa.s.sed an Act, in which they allowed perfect freedom of opinion, discussion, and action on the side of Parliament, but none on the side of the King; the one party in the colony could say and act as they pleased (and many of them went to England and joined Cromwell's army or got places in public departments); no one of the other party was allowed to give expression to his opinions, either ”directly or indirectly,” without being ”accounted as an offender of a high nature against this Commonwealth, and to be prosecuted, capitally or otherwise, according to the quality and degree of his offence.”[76]
The New England historians have represented the acts of Charles the First as arbitrary and tyrannical in inquiring into the affairs of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, and in the appointment of a Governor-General and Commissioners to investigate all their proceedings and regulate them; and it might be supposed that the Puritan Parliament in England and the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay would be at one in regard to local independence of the colony of any control or interference on the part of the Parent State. But the very year after the House of Commons had adopted so gracious an order to exempt the exports and imports of the colony from all taxation, both Houses of Parliament pa.s.sed an Act for the appointment of a Governor-General and seventeen Commissioners--five Lords and twelve Commoners--with unlimited powers over all the American colonies. Among the members of the House of Commons composing this Commission were Sir Harry Vane and Oliver Cromwell. The t.i.tle of this Act, in Hazard, is as follows:
”An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons a.s.sembled in Parliament: whereby Robert Earl of Warwick is made Governor-in-Chief and Lord High Admiral of all those Islands and Plantations inhabited, planted, or belonging to any of his Majesty the King of England's subjects, within the bounds and upon the coasts of America, and a Committee appointed to be a.s.sisting unto him, for the better government, strengthening and preservation of the said Plantations; but chiefly for the advancement of the true Protestant religion, and further spreading of the Gospel of Christ[77]
among those that yet remain there, in great and miserable blindness and ignorance.”[78]
This Act places all the affairs of the colonies, with the appointment of Governors and all other local officers, under the direct control of Parliament, through its general Governor and Commissioners, and shows beyond doubt that the Puritans of the Long Parliament held the same views with those of Charles the First, and George the Third, and Lord North a century afterwards, as to the authority of the British Parliament over the American colonies. Whether those views were right or wrong, they were the views of all parties in England from the beginning for more than a century, as to the relations between the British Parliament and the colonies. The views on this subject held and maintained by the United Empire Loyalists, during the American Revolution of 1776, were those which had been held by all parties in England, whether Puritans or Churchmen, from the first granting of the Charter to the Company of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay in 1629. The a.s.sumptions and statements of American historians to the contrary on this subject are at variance with all the preceding facts of colonial history.[79]
Mr. Bancroft makes no mention of this important ordinance pa.s.sed by both Houses of the Long Parliament;[80] nor does Hutchinson, or Graham, or Palfrey. Less sweeping acts of authority over the colonies, by either of the Charters, are portrayed by these historians with minuteness and power, if not in terms of exaggeration. The most absolute and comprehensive authority as to both appointments and trade in the colonies ordered by the Long Parliament and Commonwealth are referred to in brief and vague terms, or not at all noticed, by the historical eulogist of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Puritans,[81] who, while they were a.s.serting their independence of the royal rule of England, claimed and exercised absolute rule over individual consciences and religious liberty in Ma.s.sachusetts, not only against Episcopalians, but equally against Presbyterians and Baptists; for this very year, says Hutchinson, ”several persons came from England in 1643, made a muster to set Presbyterian government under the authority of the a.s.sembly of Westminster; but the New England a.s.sembly, the General Court, soon put them to the rout.”[82] And in the following year, 1644, these ”Fathers of American liberty” adopted measures equally decisive to ”rout” the Baptists. The ordinance pa.s.sed on this subject, the ”13th of the 9th month, 1644,” commences thus: ”Forasmuch as experience hath plentifully and often proved that since the first arising of the Anabaptists, about one hundred years since, they have been the incendaries of the Commonwealths and the infectors of persons in main matters of religion, and the troubles of churches in all places where they have been, and that they who have held the baptizing of infants unlawful, have usually held other errors or heresies therewith, though they have (as other heretics used to do) concealed the same till they spied out a fit advantage and opportunity to vent them by way of question or scruple,”
etc.: ”It is ordered and agreed, that if any person or persons within this jurisdiction shall either openly condemn _or_ oppose the baptizing of infants, _or_ go about secretly to seduce others from the approbation or use thereof, _or_ shall purposely depart the congregation at the ministration of the ordinance, _or_ shall deny the ordinance of magistracy, or their lawful right and authority to make war, _or_ to punish the outward breakers of the first Table, and shall appear to the Court to continue therein after the due time and means of conviction, _shall be sentenced to banishment_.”[83]
In the following year, 1646, the Presbyterians, not being satisfied with having been ”put to the rout” in 1643, made a second attempt to establish their wors.h.i.+p within the jurisdiction of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay.
Mr. Palfrey terms this attempt a ”Presbyterian cabal,” and calls its leaders ”conspirators.” They pet.i.tioned the General Court or Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, and on the rejection of their pet.i.tion they proposed to appeal to the Parliament in England. They were persecuted for both acts. It was pretended that they were punished, not for pet.i.tioning the local Court, but for the expressions used in their pet.i.tion--the same as it had been said seventeen years before, that the Messrs. Brown were banished, not because they were Episcopalians, but because, when called before Endicot and his councillors, they used offensive expressions in justification of their conduct in continuing to wors.h.i.+p as they had done in England. In their case, in 1629, the use and wors.h.i.+p of the Prayer Book was forbidden, and the promoters of it banished, and their papers seized; in this case, in 1646, the Presbyterian wors.h.i.+p was forbidden, and the promoters of it were imprisoned and fined, and their papers seized. In both cases the victims of religious intolerance and civil tyranny were men of the highest position and intelligence. The statements of the pet.i.tioners in 1646 (the truth of which could not be denied, though the pet.i.tioners were punished for telling it) show the state of bondage and oppression to which all who would not join the Congregational Churches--that is, five-sixths of the population--were reduced under this system of Church government--the Congregational Church members alone electors, alone eligible to be elected, alone law-makers and law administrators, alone imposing taxes, alone providing military stores and commanding the soldiery; and then the victims of such a Government were p.r.o.nounced and punished as ”conspirators” and ”traitors” when they ventured to appeal for redress to the Mother Country. The most exclusive and irresponsible Government that ever existed in Canada in its earliest days never approached such a despotism as this of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay. I leave the reader to decide, when he peruses what was pet.i.tioned for--first to the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature, and then to the English Parliament--who were the real ”traitors” and who the ”conspirators” against right and liberty: the ”Presbyterian cabal,” as Mr. Palfrey terms the pet.i.tioners, or those who imprisoned and fined them, and seized their papers. Mr.
Hutchinson, the best informed and most candid of the New England historians, states the affair of the pet.i.tioners, their proceedings and treatment, and the pet.i.tion which they presented, as follows:
”A great disturbance was caused in the colony this year [1646] by a number of persons of figure, but of different sentiments, both as to civil and ecclesiastical government, from the people in general. They had laid a scheme for pet.i.tion of such as were non-freemen to the courts of both colonies, and upon the pet.i.tions being refused, to apply to the Parliament, pretending they were subjected to arbitrary power, extra-judicial proceedings, etc. The princ.i.p.al things complained of by the pet.i.tioners were:
”1st. That the fundamental laws of England were not owned by the Colony, as the basis of their government, according to the patent.
”2nd. The denial of those civil privileges, which the freemen of the jurisdiction enjoyed, to such as were not members of Churches, and did not take an oath of fidelity devised by the authority here, although they were freeborn Englishmen, of sober lives and conversation, etc.
”3rd. That they were debarred from Christian privileges, viz., the Lord's Supper for themselves, and baptism for their children, unless they were members of some of the particular Churches in the country, though otherwise sober, righteous, and G.o.dly, and eminent for knowledge, not scandalous in life and conversation, and members of Churches in England.
”And they prayed that civil liberty and freedom might be forthwith granted to all truly English, and that all members of the Church of England or Scotland, not scandalous, might be admitted to the privileges of the Churches of New England; or if these civil and religious liberties were refused, that they might be freed from the heavy taxes imposed upon them, and from the impresses made of them or their children or servants into the war; and if they failed of redress there, they should be under the necessity of making application to England, to the honourable Houses of Parliament, who they hoped would take their sad condition, etc.
”But if their prayer should be granted, they hoped to see the then contemned ordinances of G.o.d highly prized; the Gospel, then dark, break forth as the sun; Christian charity, then frozen, wax warm; jealousy of arbitrary government banished; strife and contention abated; and all business in Church and State, which for many years had gone backward, successfully thriving, etc.
”The Court, and great part of the country, were much offended at this pet.i.tion. A declaration was drawn up by order of the Court, in answer to the pet.i.tion, and in vindication of the Government--a proceeding which at this day would not appear for the honour of the supreme authority.
The pet.i.tioners were required to attend the Court. They urged their right of pet.i.tioning. They were told they were not accused of pet.i.tioning, but of contemptuous and seditious expressions, and were required to find sureties for their good behaviour, etc. A charge was drawn up against them in form; notwithstanding which it was intimated to them, that if they would ingenuously acknowledge their offence, they should be forgiven; but they refused, and were fined, some in larger, some in smaller sums, two or three of the magistrates dissenting, Mr.
Bellingham,[85] in particular, desiring his dissent might be entered.
The pet.i.tioners claimed an appeal to the Commissioners of Plantations in England; but it was not allowed. Some of them resolved to go home with a complaint. Their papers were seized, and among them was found a pet.i.tion to the Right Honourable the Earl of Warwick, etc., Commissioners, from about five and twenty non-freemen, for themselves and many thousands more, in which they represent that from the pulpits[86] they had been reproached and branded with the names of destroyers of Churches and Commonwealths, called Hamans, Judases, sons of Korah, and the Lord entreated to confound them, and the people and magistrates stirred up against them by those who were too forward to step out of their callings, so that they had been sent for to the Court, and some of them committed for refusing to give two hundred pounds bond to stand to the sentence of the Court, _when all the crime was a pet.i.tion to the Court_, and they had been publicly used as malefactors, etc.
”Mr. Winslow, who had been chosen agent for the colony to answer to Gorton's complaint, was now instructed to make defence against these pet.i.tioners; and by his prudent management, and the credit and esteem he was in with many members of the Parliament and princ.i.p.al persons then in power, he prevented any prejudice to the colony from either of these applications.”[87]
Mr. (Edward) Winslow, above mentioned by Mr. Hutchinson, had been one of the founders and Governors of the _Plymouth_ colony; but twenty-five years afterwards he imbibed the persecuting spirit of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay colony, became their agent and advocate in London, and by the prestige which he had acquired as the first narrator and afterwards Governor of the Plymouth colony, had much influence with the leading men of the Long Parliament. He there joined himself to Cromwell, and was appointed one of his three Commissioners to the West Indies, where he died in 1655. Cromwell, as he said when he first obtained possession of the King, had ”the Parliament in his pocket;” he had abolished the Prayer Book and its wors.h.i.+p; he had expurgated the army of Presbyterians, and filled their places with Congregationalists; he was repeating the same process in Parliament; and through him, therefore (who was also Commander-in-Chief of all the Parliamentary forces), Mr.
Winslow had little difficulty in stifling the appeal from Ma.s.sachusetts Bay for liberty of wors.h.i.+p in behalf of both Presbyterians and Episcopalians.
But was ever a pet.i.tion to a local Legislature more const.i.tutional, or more open and manly in the manner of its getting up, more Christian in its sentiments and objects? Yet the pet.i.tioners were arraigned and punished as ”conspirators” and ”disturbers of the public peace,” by order of that Legislature, for openly pet.i.tioning to it against some of its own acts. Was ever appeal to the Imperial Parliament by British subjects more justifiable than that of Dr. Child, Mr. Dand, Mr. Va.s.sal (progenitor of British Peers), and others, from acts of a local Government which deprived them of both religious rights of wors.h.i.+p and civil rights of franchise, of all things earthly most valued by enlightened men, and without which the position of man is little better than that of goods and chattels? Yet the respectable men who appealed to the supreme power of the realm for the attainment of these attributes of Christian and British citizens.h.i.+p were imprisoned and heavily fined, and their private papers seized and sequestered!