Lyon Gardiner Tyler - England in America, 1580 to 1652

L >> Lyon Gardiner Tyler >> England in America, 1580 to 1652

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Baltimore would not even exempt the Jesuit priests in Maryland from
the ordinary laws as to lands and taxes, and by the "Conditions of
Plantations," published in 1648, he prohibited any society, temporal
or spiritual, from taking up land.[15] In 1643 his liberality carried
him so far as to induce him to extend, through Major Edward Gibbons,
an invitation to the Puritans of Massachusetts to emigrate to
Maryland, with a full assurance of "free liberty of religion"; but
Winthrop grimly writes, "None of our people had temptation that
way."[16]

In the year of this invitation the possibility of a new shuffle of the
political cards occurred through the breaking out of the war so long
brewing in England between the king and Parliament. The struggle of
party made itself strongly felt in Maryland, where, among the
Protestants, sympathy with Parliament was supplemented by hatred of
Catholics. In 1643, Governor Leonard Calvert repaired to England,
where he received letters of marque from the king at Oxford
commissioning him to seize ships belonging to Parliament. Accordingly,
when, three months later, in January, 1644, Captain Richard Ingle
arrived in his ship at St. Mary's and uttered some blatant words
against the king, he was arrested by Acting Governor Brent, for
treason. The charges were dismissed by the grand jury as unfounded,
but Brent treated Ingle harshly, and fined and exiled Thomas
Cornwallis for assisting the captain in escaping.[17]

In September, 1644, when Calvert returned to Maryland, there were
strong symptoms of revolt, which came to a head when Ingle came back
to St. Mary's with a commission from Parliament in February, 1645.
Chaotic times ensued, during which Catholics were made victims of the
cruel prejudices of the Protestants. The two Jesuit priests, Father
Andrew White and Father Philip Fisher, were arrested, loaded with
irons,[18] and sent prisoners into England, while Leonard Calvert
himself was driven from Maryland into Virginia.[19]

During these tumults so many persons went over from Virginia to
Maryland that the Virginia assembly sent Captain Edward Hill and
Captain Thomas Willoughby to compel the return of the absentees,[20]
with curious result. As the province was without a governor, some of
the council of Maryland issued, in the name of the refugee Calvert, a
commission to Hill to act as governor of Maryland. The revolutionists
flattered themselves that a stable government under a Protestant
governor was now at hand. But the unexpected came to pass, when, in
December, 1646, Governor Calvert suddenly appeared with a strong body
of soldiers furnished by Sir William Berkeley and re-established his
authority by capturing both Hill and the Protestant assembly then
sitting at St. Mary's.

These two years of civil war in Maryland are called the "plundering
time." Claiborne again appears, though there is no evidence that he
had any part in Ingle's spoliations.[21] He did visit Kent Island
about Christmas, 1645, and put Captain Brent, to whom Governor Calvert
had assigned his house and property, in a terrible fright. One year
later he visited the island a second time, when he offered to aid the
Kent Islanders in marching upon St. Mary's with a view of reinstating
Hill. When the men of Kent declined to take the risk, Claiborne
returned to Virginia, and Kent Island fell once more under the
government of Lord Baltimore.[22] On this visit Claiborne, instead of
posing as a friend of the Parliament, showed a commission and letter
from the king, by whom he appears to have stood till the king's death
in 1649. Charles I., in his turn, who deposed Lord Baltimore as a
"notorious parliamentarian," appointed Claiborne, in 1642, treasurer
of Virginia;[23] and Charles II. included his name among the list of
councillors in the commission issued by Sir William Berkeley in
1650.[24]

While Maryland was thus convulsed with civil war an ordinance settling
the Maryland government in Protestant hands passed the House of Lords.
Before the Commons could concur, Lord Baltimore appeared and asked for
time to inquire into the charges. This was after the battle of Marston
Moor, and perhaps marks the moment when Lord Baltimore, conceiving the
king's cause desperate, began to trim his sails to the parliamentary
side. His request was granted, and Parliament, diverted from immediate
action, left Baltimore's authority unaffected for several years.[25]

In this interval Baltimore busied himself in reorganizing his
government on a Protestant basis. Leonard Calvert died in June, 1647,
not long after his _coup d'etat_ at St. Mary's, and upon his deathbed
he appointed Thomas Greene, a Catholic and royalist, as his successor.
Lord Baltimore removed him and appointed in his stead a Protestant,
Captain William Stone, of Northampton County, Virginia, giving him a
Protestant secretary and a Protestant majority of councillors. Yet
Baltimore took care not to surrender the cardinal principle of his
government. Before Stone and his chief officers were allowed to take
office they were required to swear not to "molest any person in the
colony professing to believe in Jesus Christ for or in respect of his
or her religion, and in particular no Roman Catholic."[26]

The famous Toleration Act of 1649 was passed at the first assembly
succeeding Stone's appointment. It was very probably in great part a
copy of a bill in the code of sixteen laws which Baltimore sent over
at this time, and it very nearly repeated the provisions of the oath
required of Governor Stone. While the terms of the act did not place
the right on that broad plane of universal principle stated later in
the Virginia Declaration of Rights, it proclaimed toleration, even if
it was a toleration of a very limited nature.[27]

Stone had recommended himself to Calvert by promising to lead five
hundred persons of British or Irish descent[28] into Maryland; and
this engagement he was soon able to perform through the Puritans,
whose story of persecution in Virginia has been already related. The
new emigrants called the country where they settled "Providence," from
feelings akin to those which led Roger Williams to give that
comforting name to his settlement on Narragansett Bay. They were to
prove a thorn in Baltimore's flesh, but for the moment they seemed
tolerably submissive. In January, 1650, soon after their arrival,
Governor Stone called an assembly to meet at St. Mary's in April, and
to this assembly the colony at "Providence" sent two representatives,
one of whom was made speaker.

Apprehension of William Claiborne was still felt, and the assembly,
though dominated by the new-comers, declared their readiness to resist
any attempts of his to seize Kent Island.[29] Only in one particular
at this time did they oppose Lord Baltimore's policy. The oath of
fidelity required them to acknowledge Lord Baltimore as "absolute
lord" and his jurisdiction as "royal jurisdiction."[30] The Puritans,
having scruples about these words, struck them out and inserted a
proviso that the oath "be not in any wise understood to infringe or
prejudice liberty of conscience."[31] About this time Charles II.,
although a powerless exile, issued an order deposing Baltimore from
his government and appointing Sir William Davenant as his successor,
for the reason that Baltimore "did visibly adhere to the rebels in
England and admit all kinds of schismatics and sectaries and
ill-affected persons into the plantation."[32]

Thus when Parliament soon after took up his case again, Lord Baltimore
came full-handed with proofs of loyalty to the commonwealth. His
enemies produced evidence that Charles II., in 1649, was proclaimed in
Maryland, but Baltimore showed that it was done without his authority
by Thomas Greene, who acted as governor a second time during a brief
absence of Captain Stone from Maryland. When they accused him of being
an enemy of Protestants he produced the proclamation of Charles II.,
deposing him from the government on account of his adherence to them.
Finally, he exhibited a declaration in his behalf signed by many of
the Puritan emigrants from Virginia, among whom were William Durand,
their elder, and James Cox and Samuel Puddington, the two burgesses
from Providence in the assembly of 1650.[33]

Nevertheless, Baltimore played a losing game. At heart the Puritans in
England were unfriendly to him because of his religion; and, when
persistent rumors reached Maryland that Baltimore's patent was doomed,
some of the men of Providence appeared in England and urged that it be
revoked.[34] At length, October 3, 1650, Parliament passed an
ordinance authorizing the Council of State to reduce to obedience
Barbadoes, Antigua, Bermudas, and "Virginia," the last being a term
which in England was often used to include Maryland. Baltimore
struggled hard to have Maryland left out of the instructions drawn up
afterwards by the Council of State; but though he was apparently
successful, a descriptive phrase including his province was inserted,
for the commissioners, Curtis, Claiborne, and Bennett, with an armed
fleet, were instructed "to use their best endeavors to reduce _all the
plantations within the Bay of Chesopiack_ to their due obedience to
the Parliament of England."[35]

After the commissioners had reduced Virginia, they found even less
resistance in Maryland. The commissioners landed at St. Mary's, and,
professing their intention to respect the "just rights" of Lord
Baltimore, demanded that Stone should change the form of the writs
from the name of Lord Baltimore to that of Parliament. Stone at first
declined to comply, and the commissioners, March 29, 1652, put the
government into the hands of a council of leading Protestants. Stone
then reconsidered his action, and Claiborne and Bennett, returning to
St. Mary's, restored him to the government, June 28, 1652, in
conjunction with the councillors already appointed. The ascendency of
Claiborne seemed complete, but beyond renewing his property claim to
Kent and Palmer islands, he did not then further interfere.[36]

Maryland consisted at this time of four counties: St. Mary's, erected
in 1634, Kent, 1642, and Charles and Anne Arundelin 1650, and
contained a population perhaps of eight thousand. The settlements
reached on both sides of the bay, from the Potomac to the Susquehanna.
Society was distinctly democratic, for while there were favored
families there was no privileged class, and the existence of African
slavery and the temporary servitude of convicts and redemptioners
tended to place all freemen on an equality. As there was no state
church, educational opportunities in the province were small, but it
was a land of plenty and hospitality, and charity in religion made the
execution of the criminal law singularly mild. In spite of turmoils
and dissensions, Maryland prospered and flourished. A home feeling
existed, and there were many even among the recent exiles from
Virginia who looked with hope to its future and spoke of it as "a
country in which I desire to spend the remnant of my days, in which I
covet to make my grave."[37]

[Footnote 1: _Md. Archives_, III., 32.]

[Footnote 2: _Md. Archives_, V., 158.]

[Footnote 3: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 154. ]

[Footnote 4: _Md. Archives_, III., 33. ]

[Footnote 5: Browne, _George and Cecilius Calvert_, 49.]

[Footnote 6: _Md. Archives_, V., 164-168.]

[Footnote 7: Ibid., III., 29.]

[Footnote 8: Neill, _Founders of Maryland_, 51.]

[Footnote 9: _Md. Archives_ III., 37.]

[Footnote 10: Browne, _George and Cecilius Calvert_, 69.]

[Footnote 11: _Md. Archives_, V., 187.]

[Footnote 12: _Md. Archives_, III., 42-93.]

[Footnote 13: White, _Relation_ (Force, _Tracts_, IV., No. xii.).]

[Footnote 14: _Md. Archives_, I., 119, IV., 38.]

[Footnote 15: _Calvert Papers_ (Md. Hist. Soc., _Fund Publications_,
No. 35), 166, 216, 217; _Md. Archives_, III., 227.]

[Footnote 16: Winthrop, _New England_, II., 179.]

[Footnote 17: _Md. Archives_, IV., 246-249.]

[Footnote 18: Neill, _Founders of Maryland_, 75; _Md. Archives_, III.,
165, 177.]

[Footnote 19: Bozman, _Maryland_, II., 293.]

[Footnote 20: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 321.]

[Footnote 21: Bozman, _Maryland_, II., 296.]

[Footnote 22: _Md. Archives_, IV., 281, 435, 458, 459.]

[Footnote 23: Hazard, _State Papers_, I., 493.]

[Footnote 24: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 340.]

[Footnote 25: _Md. Archives_, III., 164, 180, 187.]

[Footnote 26: _Md. Archives_, III., 211, 214.]

[Footnote 27: Ibid., I., 244-247.]

[Footnote 28: Ibid., III., 201.]

[Footnote 29: _Md. Archives_, I., 261, 287.]

[Footnote 30: Ibid., III., 196.]

[Footnote 31: Ibid., I., 305.]

[Footnote 32: Neill, _Terra Mariae_, 88.]

[Footnote 33: Bozman, _Maryland_, II., 672.]

[Footnote 34: _Md. Archives_, III., 259.]

[Footnote 35: _Md. Archives_, III., 265.]

[Footnote 36: Ibid., 271-277.]

[Footnote 37: Hammond, _Leah and Rachel_ (Force, _Tracts_, III., No.
xiv.).]

CHAPTER IX

FOUNDING OF PLYMOUTH

(1608-1630)

After the disastrous failure of the Popham colony in 1608 the Plymouth
Company for several years was inactive. Its members were lacking in
enthusiastic co-operation, and therefore did not attract, like the
London Company, the money and energy of the nation. After Sir John
Popham's death, in 1607, his son Francis Popham was chiefly
instrumental in sending out several vessels, which, though despatched
for trade, served to keep up interest in the northern shores of
America.

That coast threatened to be lost to Englishmen, for the French, in
1603, began to make settlements in Nova Scotia and in Mount Desert
Island, near the mouth of the Penobscot, while their ships sailed
southward along the New England shores. The Dutch, too, explored the
Hudson (1609) and prepared the way for a colony there. It was,
therefore, a great service to England when Captain Argall, under the
authority of Sir Thomas Dale, in 1613, dislodged the French at Mount
Desert, Port Royal, and St. Croix.

Shortly after Argall's visit John Smith sailed, in 1614, for the
northern coast, with two ships fitted out by some private adventurers.
While the ships were taking a freight of fish, Smith, with a view to
colonization, ranged the neighboring coast, collecting furs from the
natives, taking notes of the shores and the islands, and making
soundings of the water. Smith drew a map of the country, and was the
first to call it "New England" instead of North Virginia, Norumbega,
or Canada. This map he submitted to Prince Charles, who gave names to
some thirty points on the coast. Only Plymouth, Charles River, and
Cape Ann have permanently kept the names thus fastened upon them.
Boston, Hull, Cambridge, and some others were subsequently adopted,
but applied to localities different from those to which Prince Charles
affixed them.

While he was absent one day Thomas Hunt, master of one of his vessels,
kidnapped twenty-four savages, and, setting sail, carried them to
Spain, where he sold most of them. The outrage soured the Indians in
New England, but of the captives, one, named Squanto or Tisquantum,
was carried to England, and his later friendliness worked to the
benefit of subsequent English colonization.[1]

In 1615 Captain Smith entered into the service of the Plymouth Company
and was complimented with the title of "Admiral of New England." With
great difficulty they provided two ships and despatched them to effect
a settlement, but the result was the old story of misfortune. The ship
in which Smith sailed was captured by the French, and Smith himself
was detained in captivity for some time. Captain Dormer, with the
other vessel, proceeded on his voyage to New England, but did not
attempt anything beyond securing a cargo of furs.

Smith tried to stir up interest in another expedition, and travelled
about England in 1616, distributing his maps and other writings, but
he says "all availed no more than to hew rocks with oyster-shells."
Smith's connection with the American coast then ceased altogether; but
his plans of colonization were not without fruit, since his literary
works, making known the advantages of New England, kept the attention
of the public fastened upon that region.[2]

At this time the most prominent member of the Plymouth Company was Sir
Ferdinando Gorges, son of Edward Gorges, of Worcestershire, born about
1566. He served at Sluys in 1587, was knighted by Essex before Rouen,
in October, 1591, and in 1593 was made governor of the port of
Plymouth in England, which office he still held. Despite the
ill-fortune attending past efforts, he continued to send out vessels
under color of fishing and trade, which ranged the coast of New
England and brought news of a calamity to the natives unexpectedly
favorable to future colonization. In 1616-1617 the country from
Penobscot River to Narragansett Bay was almost left "void of
inhabitants" by a pestilence which swept away entire villages of
Indians. This information, together with the better knowledge due to
Gorges of the value of the fisheries, caused a revival of interest
regarding New England among the members of the Plymouth Company.[3]

Under the name of "the Council for New England," they obtained from
the king in 1620 a new charter,[4] granting to them all the territory
in North America extending "in breadth from forty degrees of northerly
latitude, from the equinoctial line, to forty-eight degrees of the
said northerly latitude, and in length by all the breadth aforesaid
throughout the main-land from sea to sea." In the new grant the number
of grantees was limited to forty, and all other persons enjoying
rights in the company's lands stood in the position of their tenants.
Thus, like the Plymouth Company, the new company proved defective in
co-operative power, and the first actual settlement of New England was
due to an influence little fancied by any of its members.

Religious opinions during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were
great political forces. The Christian church of Europe, before the
days of Luther, held the view that the pope of Rome was the only
infallible interpreter of the Holy Scriptures, and against this
doctrine Luther led a revolt denominated Protestantism, which insisted
upon the right of private judgment. Nevertheless, when the reformed
churches came to adopt articles and canons of their own they generally
discarded this fundamental difference, and, affirming infallibility in
themselves, enlisted the civil power in support of their doctrines.

Hence, in 1559, Queen Elizabeth caused her Parliament to pass two
famous statutes, the Act of Supremacy, which required all clergymen
and office-holders to renounce the spiritual as well as temporal
jurisdiction of all foreign princes and prelates; and the Act of
Uniformity, which forbade any minister from using any other liturgy or
service than that established by Parliament.[5]

These acts, though directed originally against the Roman Catholics,
were resented by many zealous English clergymen who, during the reign
of Queen Mary, had taken refuge in Switzerland and Germany, and
learned while there the spiritual and political doctrines of John
Calvin. These English refugees were the first Puritans, and in the
beginning the large majority had no desire of separating from the
church of which the sovereign was the head, but thought to reform it
from within, according to their own views of ecclesiastical policy.
They wanted, among other things, to discard the surplice and Book of
Common Prayer and to abolish the order of bishops. Queen Elizabeth
looked upon their opinions as dangerous, and harassed them before the
Court of High Commission, created in 1583 for enforcing the acts of
supremacy and uniformity. But her persecution increased rather than
diminished the opposition, and finally there arose a sect called
Independents, who flatly denied the ecclesiastical supremacy of the
queen and claimed the right to set up separate churches of their own.
The Scotch Calvinists worked out an elaborate form of Presbyterian
government, by synods and assemblies, which later played a great part
in England.

For a long time the "Separatists," as they were called, were as
unpopular with the great body of Puritans as with the churchmen.
Popular aversion was expressed by the derisive name of "Brownists,"
given them from Robert Browne, the first to set forth their doctrines
in a formal pamphlet, entitled _The Life and Manners of True
Christians_. Their meetings were broken up by mobs, and worshippers
were subjected to insults.[6]

Holland at that time was the only country enlightened enough to open
its doors to all religions professing Jesus Christ; and as early as
1593 a Separatist congregation, which had come into existence at
London, took refuge at Amsterdam, and they were followed by many other
persons persecuted under the laws of Queen Elizabeth. When she died,
in 1603, there were hopes at first of a milder policy from King James,
but they were speedily dispelled, and at a conference of Puritans and
High Churchmen at Hampton Court in 1604 the king warned dissenters, "I
will make them conform or I will harry them out of this land, or else
worse"; and he was as good as his word.[7]

Several congregations of Separatists were located in the northeastern
part of England, in some towns and villages in Nottinghamshire,
Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire. One held meetings, under Rev. John Smith,
a Cambridge graduate, at Gainsborough, and another, under Richard
Clifton as pastor and John Robinson as teacher, at the small village
of Scrooby. Persecuted by the king's officers, these congregations
began to consider the advisability of joining their brethren in
Holland. That of Gainsborough was the first to emigrate, and,
following the example of the London church, it settled at Amsterdam.

In the second, or Scrooby, congregation, destined to furnish the
"Pilgrim Fathers" of New England,[8] three men were conspicuous as
leaders. The first was John Robinson, a man, according to the
testimony of an opponent, of "excellent parts, and the most learned,
polished, and modest spirit" that ever separated from the church of
England. The second was the elder, William Brewster, like Robinson,
educated at Cambridge, who had served as one of the under-secretaries
of state for many years. After the downfall of his patron, Secretary
Davison, he accepted the position of postmaster and went to live at
Scrooby in an old manor house of Sir Samuel Sandys, the elder brother
of Sir Edwin Sandys, where, in the great hall, the Separatists held
their meetings.[9] The third character was William Bradford, born at
Austerfield, a village neighboring to Scrooby, and at the time of the
flight from England seventeen years of age, afterwards noted for his
ability and loftiness of character.

In 1607 the Scrooby congregation made their first attempt to escape
into Holland. A large party of them hired a ship at Boston, in
Lincolnshire, but the captain betrayed them to the officers of the
law, who rifled them of their money and goods and confined them for
about a month in jail. The next year another party made an attempt to
leave. The captain, who was a Dutchman, started to take the men
aboard, but after the first boat-load he saw a party of soldiers
approaching, and, "swearing his countries oath Sacramente, and having
the wind faire, weighed anchor, hoysted sayles & away." The little
band was thus miserably separated, and men and women suffered many
misfortunes; but in the end, by one means or another, all made good
their escape from England and met together in the city of Amsterdam.

They found there both the church of the London Separatists and that of
the Gainsborough people stirred up over theological questions, which
bid fair to tear them to pieces. Hence, Robinson determined to remove
his flock, and in May, 1609, they made the city of Leyden, twenty
miles distant, their permanent abode. Their pastor, Richard Clifton,
remained in Amsterdam, and the care of the congregation in their new
home was confided to John Robinson and William Brewster.[10]

In Leyden the Pilgrims were compelled to adapt themselves, as they had
in Amsterdam, to conditions of life very different from those to which
they had been trained in their own country. As far as they can be
traced, a majority seem to have found employment in the manufacture of
woollen goods, for which the city was famous. Their uprightness,
diligence, and sobriety gave them a good name and pecuniary credit
with their Dutch neighbors, who testified twelve years later that in
all their stay in Holland "we never had any suit or accusation against
any of them."[11]

To Robinson, Brewster, and Bradford the change was a decided gain. As
the site of a great university, Leyden furnished them intercourse with
learned men and access to valuable libraries. Robinson was admitted a
member of the university, and before long appeared as a disputant on
the Calvinist side in the public discussions. Brewster taught the
English language to the Dutch, and, opening a publishing house,
printed many theological books. Bradford devoted himself to the study
of the ancient languages, "to see with his own eyes the ancient
oracles of God in all their native beauty."[12]

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