Part 15 (1/2)

[Footnote 16: Ibid., 248.]

[Footnote 17: Hazard, _State Papers_, I., 298.]

[Footnote 18: Bradford, _Letter-Book_ (Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 1st series, III., 63); _Plimoth Plantation_, 284-292.]

[Footnote 19: Bradford, _Letter-Book_ (Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 1st series, III., 53).]

[Footnote 20: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 350.]

[Footnote 21: Winthrop, _New England_, I., 139.]

[Footnote 22: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 395-401.]

[Footnote 23: _Plymouth Col. Records_, I., 133.]

[Footnote 24: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 437-444.]

[Footnote 25: Palfrey, _New England_, I., 223, II., 6; Hazard, _State Papers_, I., 300.]

[Footnote 26: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 459.]

[Footnote 27: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 444.]

[Footnote 28: Ibid., 122.]

[Footnote 29: Ibid., 187.]

[Footnote 30: Palfrey, _New England_, II., 8.]

[Footnote 31: Ibid. In August, 1643, the number of males of military age was 627.]

[Footnote 32: Brigham, _Plymouth Charter and Laws_, 43, 244.]

[Footnote 33: Palfrey, _New England_, II., 7; Howard, _Local Const.i.tutional History_, 50-99.]

[Footnote 34: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 314, 418, 419.]

CHAPTER XI

GENESIS OF Ma.s.sACHUSETTS

(1628-1630)

The abandonment, in 1626, of their colony at Cape Ann by the Dorchester adventurers, did not cause connection to be entirely severed either in America or in England. In America, Conant and three of the more industrious settlers remained, but as the fishery was abandoned, they withdrew with the cattle from the exposed promontory at Cape Ann to Naumkeag, afterwards Salem.[1] In England a few of the adventurers, loath to give up entirely, sent over more cattle, and the enterprise, suddenly attracting other support, rose to a greater promise than had ever been antic.i.p.ated.[2]

Among those in England who did not lose hope was the Rev. John White, of Dorchester, a merchant as well as a preacher, and his large figure stands on the threshold of the great commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts.

Thomas Fuller says that he had absolute command of two things not easily controlled--”his own pa.s.sions and the purses of his paris.h.i.+oners.” White wrote Conant and his a.s.sociates to stick by the work, and promised to obtain for them a patent and fully provide them with means to carry on the fur trade. The matter was discussed in Lincolns.h.i.+re and London, and soon a powerful a.s.sociation came into being and lent its help.

Other men, some of whom are historic personages, began to take a leading part, and there was at first no common religious purpose among the new a.s.sociates. The contemporary literature is curiously free from any special appeal to Puritanic principles, and the arguments put forward are much the same as those urged for the settlement of Virginia. The work of planting a new colony was taken up enthusiastically, and a patent, dated March 19, 1628, was obtained from the Council for New England, conceding to six grantees, Sir Henry Rosewell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcot, John Humphrey, John Endicott, and Simon Whitcombe, ”all that Parte of New England in America aforesaid, which lyes and extendes betweene a greate River there comonlie called Monomack alias Merriemack, and a certen other River there, called Charles River, being in the Bottome of a certayne Bay there, comonlie called Ma.s.sachusetts alias Mattachusetts, ... and ... lyeing within the s.p.a.ce of three English Myles on the South Parte of the said Charles River, ... and also ... within the s.p.a.ce of three English Myles to the Northward of the said River called Monomack, ...

throughout the Mayne Landes there, from the Atlantick and Westerne Sea and Ocean on the East Parte, to the South Sea on the West Parte.”