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THE Puritan Revolution in England had failed to establish a permanent government, which should provide for the liberty of the individual, and be consonant with the genius of the English race. The ensuing restoration of the monarchy was not the return of a king crushing rebellion by force of arms. It was the peaceful reëstablishment of an institution demanded by large and important elements among the people, who considered it as essential to the welfare of the state, and who believed that the individuals who might occupy the throne had been taught sufficiently by the events of the preceding two decades not to attempt to overstep the position that had come to be assigned to them in the popular view of the constitution. But if, in the sphere of practical politics, the Revolution had merely shattered the political edifice without having been able to build another, in the domain of political thought it had left a rich legacy of ideas, which were to mould into modern form the institutions now reëstablished by the will of the people. We have already seen how quickly the anti-English party in Massachusetts had seized upon one of the most revolutionary of the Commonwealth doctrines, and proclaimed for themselves, as taught by Parliament, that "salus populi is suprema lex." These ideas, however, were not to bear their full fruit until detached from their theological origin and divested of their religious associations. This secularization of politics, by the substitution of parties for churches as political forces, was necessary before further advances could be made either in religious toleration or in civil liberty; and it was in the years following the Restoration that the transition occurred both in old England and in New.[1]

[1. Cf. Lord Acton, Modern History, pp. 205 ff.]

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In the latter, and more particularly in Massachusetts, theology and politics had been more closely intertwined than anywhere else in the Empire, and the earlier course of the struggle to break them asunder has been indicated in the preceding chapters. As we have there pointed out, the fundamental idea of theocracy was such as to preclude the possibility of either civil or religious freedom. The latter was too evidently fatal to the maintenance of that peculiar form of government to be allowed, if it could possibly be suppressed; and the former could not exist in a state in which the entire political power was to be permanently wielded by a small minority, whose essential qualification was its assent to an unique form of ecclesiastical organization. To what lengths the theocratical party in Massachusetts were willing to go in their efforts to remain in power had been shown by their contest with the Quakers. Although they were defeated in that struggle, amid many evidences that religion and politics were becoming more and more distinct in the minds of the people, the struggle was by no means ended, nor the transition complete. The political contest with the mother-country, which was now to begin in earnest, and which has often been made to seem a struggle for liberty against tyranny, was in large part, in this early stage, merely a continuance, under another guise, of the attempt of the theocracy to maintain its position and to defy all efforts, either from within or without, to interfere with its unrestricted exercise of power.

The early years of the Restoration mark, in many respects, the beginning of the modern period of English history; and this is as true of the Empire as a whole as of the constitutional developments at home. The far-seeing colonial policy of Clarendon sought to take advantage of the new outburst of energy which marked the people at that time, in order to round out and consolidate the nation’s colonial possessions; and the main aspects of imperial policy became military and commercial. The Act of Uniformity, passed in 1662, and aimed at the Puritans, did not include the colonies in its operation; and the course of events proved that the influence of the home

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authorities was thenceforth to be on the side of toleration in so far as America was concerned.

When Clarendon entered office, the colonial dependencies of England in the New World consisted in general of two isolated groups of settlements on the continent, with island outposts at the extreme north and south. A study of a map of the period reveals the essential weakness of the English position from the standpoint both of trade and of imperial defence. The two most important colonial events in Clarendon’s ministry--the great extension of English continental territory to the south by the settlement of the Carolinas, and the acquisition of New Netherland--added enormously to the strength and unity of the Empire. By the elimination of the Dutch, Clarendon argued that not only would the northern and southern colonies be relieved of the presence of a hostile state lying between them, but the menace of a flank or rear attack by the French would be largely removed from New England by securing the important military advantages of the Hudson-Mohawk route, the Lake Champlain gateway, and the friendship of the Iroquois. Moreover, so long as Holland, which was England’s most serious rival in the world’s carrying trade, should remain in possession of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, it would obviously be almost impossible to enforce the Navigation Acts, upon the observance of which, it was rightly believed at that stage, that the Empire’s commercial success and power of defense almost wholly depended.

In this last respect, however, New England, although settled ostensibly by loyal Englishmen, was almost as much of a danger as was New Netherland, settled by the Empire’s rivals. New England’s foreign commerce, which had amounted to very little before the English Civil War, had grown rapidly with the prosperity of the West-Indian sugar colonies, and by the time of the Restoration had assumed considerable proportions, both with the other colonies and with foreign countries. But New England merchants paid almost no attention to the laws of trade.[1] In 1665, Captain Leverett, who had seized a

[1. Hutchinson, History, vol. I, pp. 174, 179.]

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Dutch vessel from Amsterdam trading at Boston, was strongly censured by the Massachusetts General Court, which announced that such seizures under the Navigation Acts would not be permitted "without the consent or allowance of authoritie heere established"; and the officer escaped severer punishment only by apologies and by solemnly protesting his fidelity to the local administration.[1] Two years later, and again in 1658, Rhode Island officially proclaimed free trade with the Dutch; and in 1660, Connecticut, through her governor, denied that she had any laws not permitting it.[2]

New England’s flouting of imperial authority, and more particularly, the pretensions of Massachusetts to what was virtually an independent sovereignty, were becoming notorious throughout the Empire and in foreign countries. If England should suffer herself to be defied with impunity by her own subjects, the decline in her prestige could hardly fail to result in the disintegration of the Empire, both from internal revolts and from external aggression. It may be pointed out that such a result, although serious for England, would have been fatal to the colonies, which would have played the part of Red Riding Hood to the French wolf.

The colonial policy of Clarendon was probably influenced, in the main, by the above considerations in respect to North America. But, when the new government came into power at the Restoration, there were other reasons why its attention should immediately be turned to New England. We have already noted how the trampling upon private rights by Massachusetts in her aggressive policy of annexation, the dissatisfaction with her government on the part of many of her own citizens, the persecution endured by the Quakers, and the various disputes between the colonies over boundaries and other matters, had occasioned complaints, increasing in number and seriousness. Owing mainly to the extraordinary

[1. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 229.]

[2. R. I. Records, vol. I, pp. 356, 389; New York Colonial Documents, vol. XIV, p. 459. In the same year, the directors of the Dutch West India Company wrote to Stuyvesant that he should treat the English frigate, "which lies at New Haven and has already threatened the communication between the Manhattans and New England," as a pirate. Ibid., p. 458. Cf. Ibid., p. 453.]

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ability and persistence which the Bay Colony had shown in the "gentle art of making enemies" for the past thirty years, all of the above matters, and others, in their worst possible light, were promptly brought to the attention of the restored King and Council. Throughout the years 1660 and 1661, the ghosts of old wrongs done by Massachusetts seem constantly to have haunted the meetings of the Council, to plead their cause against that colony. The appeals of the Quakers, and the effective but temporary succor afforded them, have already been noted in an earlier chapter. Edward Godfrey, who had been forced out of his government in Maine by the Massachusetts Commissioners, filed long reports of his grievances and of "the usurpations of the Bostoners."[1] Robert Mason protested against the annexation of New Hampshire, and disregard of his rights there, as did Ferdinando Gorges, grandson of old Sir Ferdinando, in reference to his Province of Maine.[2] Captain Breeden gave a description of the political conditions in Massachusetts, emphasizing the distinction between freemen and non-freemen, the pretensions of sovereignty, and the refusal to use the oath of allegiance, and called attention to the shelter then being given to Whalley and Goffe, two of the regicide judges, who had been received with open friendliness by the colonial authorities.[3] A group of English merchants, who had invested L15,000--the equivalent of, perhaps, $300,000 to-day--in iron-works at Lynn, claimed that, for alleged debts, their agents had been arrested, their property seized, and that they were unable to gain satisfaction in the colonial courts4.

A number of other petitions were, with one exception, directed against Massachusetts, and complained mainly of the illegality or disloyalty of that colony’s actions. Giles Sylvester, of Shelter Island, in the exception noted, asserted that New Haven had wrongfully confiscated three thousand acres of his

[1. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, pp. 12, 18, 26.]

[2. Ibid., pp. 26, 22.]

[3. Ibid., pp. 15 f.]

[4. Ibid., p. 17. The Massachusetts Records say L13,000. The suit was brought by Josiah Winslow and Robert Keaynes, the latter being the one who was involved in the "sow case" and the La Tour episode. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 219.]

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land, because he would not acknowledge himself to be under its government.[1]

Of more interest, however, than these petitions for the righting of individual wrongs, were the information and advice given by Samuel Maverick, who happened to be in England at the return of Charles. Maverick, as we have seen, had been living in Massachusetts some years before John Endicott or John Winthrop had thought of going there. For nearly forty years, since 1624, he had watched its development, and, as he possessed considerable ability and a fairly sound judgment, in addition to his almost unique personal knowledge of the colony’s history, his opinion would naturally carry weight with the English authorities. He had steadily opposed the political and religious policy of the Massachusetts leaders, and had been one of the signers of the Child petition in 1646. In the letters which, for some years following 1660, he frequently wrote to Lord Clarendon, his complaints of the past occupy a minor position, and his plans for the reorganization of the colonies evidently either coincided with those of the minister or largely helped to form them.

His suggestions embraced the elimination of the Dutch danger by the taking of New Netherland, for which he rightly thought that a small force would suffice. In view of the religious intolerance, the political disabilities, the pronounced disloyalty, the encroachments and boundary disputes, in evidence in New England, he also advised the strengthening of the royal control. He suggested that the oath of allegiance be insisted upon; that the colonial laws be revised so as to agree as nearly as possible with those of England; that writs be issued

[1. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, p. 18. The New Haven Records are silent as to the case; but the Sylvesters were disliked by New Haven, in part because they sheltered Quakers from persecution. For that reason, and because he was said to have written a "blasphemous" letter against the New England magistrates, New Haven seized Lion belonging to Giles Sylvester until he should give satisfaction, if the charges, which were noted as hearsay, should be proved. Considering that the New Haven settlers were mere squatters without any legal rights, that Sylvester properly denied their jurisdiction over him, and that the amount, equivalent to about $2000 to-day, was illegally seized on merely hearsay evidence that Sylvester had criticized them, the case may be taken as showing the possibilities for strangers of Puritan colonial justice. New Haven Records, vol. II, p. 364.]

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in the king’s name; that liberty of conscience be allowed; that the franchise be given to all freeholders, and the bounds of every patent accurately determined.[1] As he estimated that three fourths of the people were loyal, and that the greater part of the Massachusetts non-freemen would favor the plan, he looked for no resistance; and although he suggested sending out a commission, he thought that no force would be necessary except for the capture of New Netherland. He certainly knew the colonies well, and, in part at least, may have been right in his assumptions. Outside of the government clique in Massachusetts there was undoubtedly a party of substantial men who would have welcomed such a settlement of matters, and the local authorities there were apparently doubtful as to how far their course of opposition to England would be acquiesced in by the country at large, should all the facts become known.

On the other hand, if the years following the Restoration marked the beginning of modern England, no less did they embrace the actual beginning of American history. The first settlers were in no real sense Americans. They were Englishmen, with English associations, connections, and habits of thought. Their natures were not altered fundamentally by sailing to a land where the sun rose five hours later. The remoteness of that land from the mother-country, and the frontier conditions which prevailed in it did, indeed, change, gradually but profoundly, the attitude of the settlers toward many matters. But that took time, and it was only with the rise of the second generation, which knew nothing of England by personal experience; which had no close ties with the home-land; whose minds and characters, for the worse as well as for the better, were wholly the products of the frontier, and whose interests and outlook were entirely provincial, that an American, as distinct from an English, strain may be said to appear in the history of our common race. New England had been settled for approximately a generation when the Restoration occurred, and there must have been, by then, a considerable element of native-born colonials from

[1. Clarendon Papers (New York Historical Society), pp. 21, 27, 35 f., 43.]

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twenty to thirty years old. If, however, the ties which bound these younger citizens to England were looser, their education was poorer, their religious feelings weaker, and their opposition to the old theocratic policy stronger.

It is impossible, from these conflicting factors, and with only the evidence at hand, to say how nearly right was Maverick’s estimate of the people’s loyalty; but he was certainly wrong in believing that it would stand the test of taxes imposed from above, or of blundering and tactless officials. He was right, however, in urging that comprehensive reforms be undertaken in colonial management, and that the case was urgent in that it would become more difficult year by year. Something, indeed, required to be done, for the good of the colonies as well as of the Empire; and could it have been done wisely and tactfully, this was undoubtedly the moment to have accomplished it.

All those interested in New England could not fail to recognize, with varying emotions, that the situation had altered. The possibility that England might at last be able to exercise authority over her dependencies could bode nothing but evil to the rulers of Massachusetts, in view of their record, theological beliefs, and political aspirations. To the proprietors of Maine and New Hampshire, on the other hand, it meant the possibility of recovering their properties, which, in turn, portended unsettlement and trouble for the inhabitants of those provinces. For, although the course of Massachusetts in annexing the eastern settlements had been overbearing, illegal, and unscrupulous, the inhabitants were undoubtedly better off than they would have been under absentee proprietors, whose main interest would be in land-titles and taxes. Connecticut and New Haven, which were not possessed of any charters, and were exercising the powers of government without any warrant, could not but be anxious for the future; and Rhode Island, hoping, perhaps, for aid against her selfish and aggressive neighbors, hastened to proclaim the King within her borders.[1]

[1. R. I. Records, vol. I, p. 432 (October 18, 1660).]

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In 1661, John Winthrop the younger, then, and for fifteen years following, Governor of Connecticut,[1] was appointed as agent to go to England, in order to present his colony’s address to the King and, if possible, to procure a charter.[2] He was instructed to try to secure one as nearly like that of Massachusetts as might be, though this seems to have been considered improbable of attainment. He was also to have the bounds extended southward to Delaware Bay, and eastward to Plymouth, thus cynically ignoring the rights, legal or not, of New Netherland, New Haven, and Rhode Island. This conscienceless imperialism, which the colonists would have denounced as tyranny and usurpation if indulged in by England, was oddly balanced by New England conservatism in money matters; for Connecticut’s agent was instructed, in case he should be unable to acquire all of the coast to Virginia, to content himself with reaching the Hudson River, as the colony did "not judge it requisite to expend money upon a Pattent."[3]

As a matter of fact, however, an expenditure was made of about L500; and, possibly as a result of the judicious disposal of this sum among the needy courtiers about the throne, Winthrop secured a charter so liberal in its terms as to serve as the constitution of colony and state until 1818.[4] It created a corporation upon the place, provided for exactly the form of government which the colonists already enjoyed, permitted them to erect courts and make laws, and defined their bounds as extending from "Narragansett river, commonly called Narragansett Bay," to the Pacific Ocean.[5] These new limits not only included a large strip of Dutch territory and almost the whole of Rhode Island, but wiped out New Haven entirely.

The latter colony had made no effort to secure a patent since 1645, when the agent dispatched for that purpose had been drowned in the ill-fated and mysterious ship that had carried down with it, not only the political hopes, but the

[1. The law against serving two successive terms was repealed May 17, 1660. Conn. Col. Records, vol. I, p. 347.]

[2. Ibid., pp. 367 ff. 582.]

[3. Ibid., pp. 580 f. 581 n.]

[4. Ibid., p. 369. Cf. A. Johnston, Connecticut (Boston, 1887) pp. 17 ff.]

[5. Cal. State Pap., Col, 1661-68, pp. 87 f. (April 23, 1662).]

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financial fortunes, of the colonists.[1] There had been a growing element in the colony, as in Massachusetts, which was opposed to its theocratical government, and about the time of the Restoration, this opposition was giving Davenport and his followers much trouble. To the demand of sundry non-freemen that the franchise be extended, the New Haven Court had replied that they could not commit "weighty civill or military trusts into the hands of either a crafty Achitophell or a bloody Joab," and that any one who should make such suggestions would be considered "troublers of our peace and disturbers of our Israell." They asserted that to grant a voice in the government to any but church members would be to defeat the main end of the plantation, from "which we cannot be perswaded to divert."[2] This was exactly the stand and reasoning persisted in by the Massachusetts leaders at the same time. Both groups stood stubbornly with their backs toward the future, and their eyes on Judea, attempting to block the path to individual liberty with the whole strength of civil power and religious prejudice. They as little understood the new day which was dawning as did the restored Stuarts in England; and the New England theocrats and the English monarchs were at one in their resistance to the forces of freedom.

The disaffected element in New Haven, however, was large and important; and when Connecticut’s imperialistic ambitions were gratified, and she obtained a charter which gave her all her neighbor’s territory, a very large proportion of New Haven’s inhabitants indicated that they preferred the "Christless rule" of Connecticut, with its property qualification for the franchise, to that of the New Haven churches. Throughout the whole process of absorption of the smaller colony by its now aggrandized neighbor, both the action and the manner of Connecticut are difficult to defend. New Haven, however, could not have stood alone much longer.

[1. New Haven Records, vols. I, pp. 149, 211, and II, p. 519. The early references to the real and phantom ships are gathered in Atwater, New Haven, pp. 537 ff.]

[2. New Haven Records, vol. II, p. 404; cf. pp. 429 ff.]

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Her commercial hopes had been proved without foundation; she had unnecessarily, but seriously, offended the English Crown; her theocratic government was inflexible; and her annexation by the more democratic and progressive commonwealth was wholly an advantage, then and later.[1]

In the ill-defined bounds of the Connecticut charter lay the seeds of many a future contest; but the effect upon Rhode Island was as immediate as upon New Haven. As we have already seen, the Narragansett country had for some time been a matter of controversy between the three adjoining colonies. As Connecticut now extended to the Bay, by royal grant, Massachusetts was seemingly excluded, and the contest lay between Rhode Island’s patent rights and those conferred in her neighbor’s new charter. John Clarke, in England at the same time as Winthrop, immediately petitioned the King for a new charter for Rhode Island.[2] This was granted, its governmental provisions being virtually the same as those of the Connecticut patent, except for the notable clause that, as the Rhode Islanders were then holding forth the "livelie experiment that a most flourishing civell state may stand and best bee maintained . . . with a full libertie in religious concernments," therefore no person in the colony should ever be "molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinione in matters of religion," any law enacted in England notwithstanding.[3] This patent, like the Connecticut one, was so liberal, and so well drawn, that it remained the constitution of colony and state for one hundred and eighty years.[4]

While the issue of the charter was pending, Clarke and Winthrop had submitted the matter of the boundary between

[1. For the events connected with the transfer, vide New Haven Records, vol. II, pp. 513 ff.; Acts United Colonies, vol. II, pp. 308 ff., 318, 324 f.; Conn. Col. Records, vol. II, pp. 407, 415, 437, 586 ff.]

[2. R. I. Records, vol. I, pp. 485 ff., 489 ff.]

[3. Ibid., vol. II, pp. 4 ff.; Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, pp. 148 ff.]

[4. For the theory that these exceptionally liberal charters were granted as part of a policy to alienate the southern colonies from Massachusetts, vide Kaye, Colonial Administration under Clarendon, pp. 75 ff. His arguments for placing the important paper, 706, in Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68 under date 1666-67, instead of 1664, seem conclusive.]

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their two colonies to arbitration; and as a result, it had been agreed between them that the dividing line should be the Pawcatuck River, henceforth to be called the Narragansett.[1] In the Rhode Island charter, therefore, that colony’s western boundary was made as agreed upon, the "clause in a late grant" to Connecticut notwithstanding.[2] Connecticut, however, which had now become even more reckless in its career of land- grabbing than Massachusetts, repudiated its agent’s act, and undertook to enforce its claims to Rhode Island’s richest territory.[3] Not only was Connecticut’s attitude selfish and unjust, but the dispute could not fail to add another legitimate reason for the exercise of imperial control by England. As Sir Thomas Holdich points out, "It was the man with the spade,--the agriculturist,--who first found the necessity for definite boundaries";4 and while the fur trade or other activities of rival colonizing nations, or of separate colonies of the same nation, might give rise to disputes over frontiers, the extreme frequency and bitterness of such quarrels in New England were largely due to the type of political and economic life developed there. Without question, their adjustment demanded the intervention of the higher power of the home country.

At the time of Charles’s return, Massachusetts was represented in England by John Leverett, as her agent, who immediately sent word of the complaints beginning to pour in against the colony. As a result, the General Court dispatched addresses both to the King and to Parliament, and appointed Richard Saltonstall and Henry Ashurst to assist Leverett in the controversy now imminent.[5] In the letter to Charles, the Court prayed that monarch, now "King over your British Israel, to cast a favorable eye upon your poore Mephibbosheth"; and defended themselves against sundry charges, particularly

[1. Agreement in R. I. Records, vol. I, p. 518; Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, pp. 148 ff.]

[2. R. I. Records, vol. II, pp. 18 ff.]

[3. Conn. Col. Records, vol. I, pp. 407, 435; Bowen, Boundary Disputes, 33 ff.]

[4. Political Frontiers and Boundary Making (London, 1916), p. 10.]

[5. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 449 ff.]

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those concerning the killing of the Quakers. "Such was theire daingerous, impetuous and desperat turbulency," the writers affirmed, that the magistrates had perforce had "to keepe the passage with the point of the sword held towards them"; and the Court unblushingly added that, had the Quakers not been restrained, "there was too much cause to feare that wee ourselves must quickly have died."[1]

In the private instructions to the colony’s agents, they were ordered to gain the interest of as many in Parliament and near the King as possible, to secure the renewal of the charter, to see that no superior power should be imposed, or appeals admitted, and even, if possible, to have the colony free from the English customs duties. If called upon to answer any charges embarrassing to the colony, they were instructed to plead lack of authority.[2] The agents seem, however, to have done nothing in England to aid the colony; and Leverett’s remark that, if forced to admit appeals to the home country, the colonists would deliver New England to the Spaniards, although stupid enough, could hardly add to the government’s idea of the colonists’ loyalty or discretion.[3]

Although the King’s answer to the address was conciliatory, the Massachusetts Court, upon its receipt, appointed a committee to determine what, in its opinion, were the legal relations between the colony and England. Their report, which we have already discussed in the preceding chapter, considered Massachusetts to be virtually an independent sovereign state, with the right to defend itself by force of arms against any "annoyance."[4] The following spring, a thousand acres of land were granted to the Artillery Company of Middlesex, orders were issued for the better accommodation of the troopers of Essex, and work was ordered rushed in order to complete the fortifications on Castle Island.[5]

Meanwhile, "considering the weight of theire occasions in

[1. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 451.]

[2. Ibid., pp. 455 f.]

[3. Maverick, in Clarendon Papers, p. 30.]

[4. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 25; cf. Hutchinson, History, vol. I, pp. 230 f.]

[5. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 45, 44, 42 f.]

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England," the Court appointed Simon Bradstreet and the Reverend John Norton to present a second address to the King, and to "indeavor to take off all scandal and objections" against the colony.[1] Although their work in England was bitterly denounced as a failure, by some of the oligarchy, they seem, in reality, to have done fairly well, and the letter which the King next dispatched to the General Court was mild in tone and required nothing that did not make for the greater liberty of the individual colonist. After expressing himself as well pleased with the colony’s agents, the monarch confirmed the charter, and granted pardon to all who had infringed its terms in the past, as well as to any in the colony who had committed offenses against him in the late Civil War. Although he partially withdrew his protection from the Quakers, he required that any person wishing to worship according to the Book of Common Prayer be allowed to do so, and that persons of good and honest lives be admitted to the Communion, and their children to baptism. The franchise was to be granted to all those of competent estate, orthodox in religion, and not vicious in their lives. He also required that the oath of allegiance be taken, and that justice be administered in his name.[2]

The results of an increase in religious liberty were as much dreaded by the leaders and their followers in the theocracy as was any limitation placed by England upon those powers which they had endeavored to make absolute. At a meeting of the General Court in October, at which the letter was read, the atrociously brutal law against the Quakers was immediately put in force again, and the only compliances with the King’s requirements were the order that legal processes should run in his name, and the issuing of directions that his letter be published. Other action toward complying with its terms was postponed until the next meeting of the Court. At that meeting, seven months later, the letter was merely referred to

[1. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 37.]

[2. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, pp. 93 f.]

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a committee, which was to report again at the next meeting, five months later still; at which, again, nothing was done. It was the old policy, advised by the clergy nearly thirty years earlier, of "avoid or protract," of ignoring and obstructing. However such a policy might fit an emergency under peculiar conditions, it obviously could not form the basis of permanent relations between organic parts of an empire.[1]

Trouble also arose for the colony from another direction. It was impossible, in ordinary justice, that England should ignore the complaints of the heirs of the original Gorges and Mason regarding the illegal encroachments of Massachusetts upon the lands claimed by them. Mason’s petition was referred to a committee of seven. Of these Mason was one, although obviously the English government should not have permitted him to be at once plaintiff and judge. But, aside from irrelevant strictures upon the policy of Massachusetts, the committee made a reasonable report, finding that Mason had inherited a good title from his grandfather, and that for many years Massachusetts had publicly recognized the line three miles north of the Merrimac as her true boundary.[2]

Meanwhile, Gorges, who had petitioned the King in April, 1661, for possession of his province, did not wait for the process of law, but appointed commissioners to go to Maine, proclaim the King, collect the quit-rents, and establish a government, notifying Massachusetts of their actions.[3] That colony promptly ordered that all the inhabitants should yield obedience only to herself and sent commissioners into the province with instructions to suppress any disobedience by the use of force, as they should see fit.[4] Under this conflict of authorities,

[1. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 58 f., 74.

[2. The report is in Belknap (History of New Hampshire, vol. I, pp. 300 f.), who reprinted it from a copy in the Recorder’s office of Rockingham County. Doyle states that there is no copy among the State Papers. Puritan Colonies, vol. II, p. 139 n. That given in Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, p. 75, however, while differing in a few minor particulars from that given by Belknap, is evidently the same document. For references to the "bound- house," cf. Massachusetts Records, vol. I, p. 167; New Hampshire Provincial Papers, vol. I, pp. 146, 249, 330; Clarendon Papers, p. 71; J. Dow, History of Town of Hampton, vol. I, pp. 7 f.]

[3. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, pp. 22, 63 f.]

[4. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 70, 76 f.]

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the affairs of Maine, the inhabitants of which province were scattered and somewhat unruly, were bound to drift into anarchy. Daniel Gookin, of Boston, wrote a conciliatory letter to Gorges, explaining the conditions from the standpoint of the good of the people; but, a year later, the King, upon a report of the technical legal aspects of the case, and apparently taking into consideration the losses of Gorges’s royalist grandfather, ordered the inhabitants to submit to Gorges, or to give reasons to the contrary without delay.[1]

The conditions in New England, in 1663, thus clearly necessitated the sending out of a Royal Commission. The legal disputes between Massachusetts and the English heirs of Gorges and Mason could not fairly be left to the decision of Massachusetts courts. Nor was the question one of technical legal title alone; for, as the committee reporting on the Mason claims had themselves pointed out, "publique interest and goverment" were "much intermixt and concerned with the private interest of the petitioners."[2] Moreover, for nearly thirty years, not only had boundary disputes between all the New England colonies been growing steadily more complicated and serious, but the colonies had proved themselves incapable, in practically every case, of settling them permanently and amicably. The contests could evidently be determined, in the absence of any superior power, only by the use of force by the claimants; and with the consistent attitude of Massachusetts and the now rapidly increasing aggressiveness of Connecticut, peace was seriously imperiled, and the fate of the smaller colonies practically sealed. Rhode Island, at once the most loyal and the most devoted to liberty of thought and action, was already in imminent danger of annihilation. In the disputed Narragansett country, the Atherton Company claimed rights which could not be justly adjudicated by any of the three colonies pretending jurisdiction, and prayed the King for intervention.[3]

[1. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, pp. 145, 214.]

[2. Belknap, New Hampshire, vol. I, p. 301.]

[3. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, pp. 143 f.]

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The accounts of practically every observer agreed as to the disloyalty of Massachusetts and her assumption of sovereignty, which were obviously confirmed by her official acts. In addition, the attitude of all the colonies to the English leaders during the Revolution, the neglect of all, except Rhode Island, promptly to proclaim the King, their protection of the regicide judges, and the refusal to observe the Navigation Acts, raised suspicions against them all. There was, besides, the religious discrimination by Massachusetts, depriving her citizens of rights which they would otherwise have enjoyed as Englishmen, and the cases of alleged injustice in colonial courts affecting English citizens with property rights in the colonies. In the absence of a royal governor, or any other means by which the home government could secure first-hand information, there was no course to follow except to appoint a Commission to go out and secure it, if the exceedingly complicated situation was to be handled intelligently. The government had shown itself more than willing to treat with the colonies through their agents; but Massachusetts purposely denied to them any authority, so as to obstruct and delay any action--an outworn policy which had now become transparently clear to the home government.

The attitude of Massachusetts was, in fact, the crux of the whole problem. The theocratical party there had developed a theory,--based apparently upon an extension of the church-covenant idea through the plantation covenant,--that the charter itself was a covenant which reserved no rights to the king and imperial government save those specifically mentioned. From this she deduced that her obligation to the Empire was so tenuous as to be virtually non-existent.[1] However satisfactorily to themselves the leaders and their followers might spin such theories, they did not agree with either the economic, political, or legal facts. At this stage, the economic welfare of the New England colonies was, of necessity, bound up with that of the Empire, from the trade of which they would be excluded if they ceased to be parts of it. Politically, they

[1. Cf. Hutchinson, History, vol. I, pp. 230 ff.]

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had to be considered as either in it or out of it, and, obviously, from the standpoint of abstract justice as well as of practical administration, they could not consider themselves as now one and now the other, according to their local interests at a given moment.

Nor could it be conceded that, by the granting of the charters, England had relinquished all rights of control, or the power to determine whether or not their terms were being complied with. That would have opened the way to the grossest misuse of power by any of the local administrations thus created, and would have been against public policy. Moreover, in practically every charter, including that of Massachusetts, the clause had appeared that no laws should be passed repugnant to those of England. Massachusetts had already passed many such, carrying with them, in some cases, the penalty of capital punishment. The clause obviously implied that there must be an authority somewhere, which could decide whether the colonial laws were repugnant or not; and it could hardly be claimed that the colonial courts which passed them were intended to be the sole judges of their conformity.[1] This would have meant that not only the inhabitants of any chartered colony, but the citizens of all the rest of the Empire having relations with it, directly or as potential emigrants, would be absolutely at the mercy of the local government, no matter what that government might do, or however criminally it might disregard the rights that the charters had specifically safeguarded. It must not be lost to sight that the contemporary merchant in England or the West Indies had as legitimate a right to require that England should protect his legal interests in Massachusetts or Connecticut as any citizen of the United States to-day has to expect that his rights will be assured to him in New Mexico or Alaska. It must also be recalled that America was the heritage of the English people, much as our West was the heritage of our citizens; and the Englishman, both for himself and for his

[1. Cf. E. B. Russell, Review of American Colonial Legislation by the King in Council (Columbia University, 1915), pp. 17 ff.]

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children, had as legitimate an interest in the nature of the government erected in any part of the Empire as we have in that set up in any part of our territorial domains. There was little more reason why a group of settlers should preëmpt Massachusetts, pass laws repugnant to those of England, and hang any Englishman whose political or religious views were obnoxious to them, than there would be for the stockholders and officers of a business corporation in Alaska, who might have been granted land and some minor police powers, to do the same thing to-day.

If the contentions of Massachusetts were to be allowed,--that she might pass any laws she chose and be sole judge of them; that she might trample upon the colonial rights of Englishmen at home, quarrel with her neighbors, determine her own bounds, be the sole interpreter of the terms of her charter, and sole judge of whether they had been complied with; deny that the king’s writ passed beyond England, or that the home country had any right to pass laws affecting the colonies even in their intercolonial and imperial relations,--then, it must be confessed, there was no empire. There was merely an imperial anarchy of conflicting local interests and warring elements, whose only common bond was their claim that England should protect them against the aggression of foreign and land-hungry powers.

If the rule of England in the seventeenth century had become tyrannical and oppressive to the extent that revolution had become justifiable, and if the colonies had become strong enough, in the state of the world as it then was, to stand alone, nothing could be said against their openly throwing off the imperial yoke. The full development of the forces already at work was, a century later, to bring about that very consummation, the discussion of which belongs to a later period. That, however, was not the case as yet, and the position which Massachusetts assumed was untenable and could eventually lead only to the loss of her charter, and not to independence. Nor could she profess loyalty in the most obsequious terms, claim all the military and commercial advantages of being a

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part of the Empire, and, at the same time, act as an independent state. It was a policy which, however unjustifiable, might be successful, perhaps, when essayed by her as the most powerful member in a New England confederacy. It could be neither, when the part was attempted to be played by that same colony in its role of an unimportant dependency in a great empire.

Nor had individual liberty anything to gain in the contest. The only possible outcome would be the loss of the charter, with all the possibilities involved in the then immediate dependence upon a Stuart monarch. At this stage, the real struggle for freedom, intellectual and political, was against the theocracy. If its leaders lost the game they were playing, as was practically inevitable, then the liberties of the colony, as embodied in the charter and related to England, would also be lost. If, on the other hand, they should by any chance win against the Crown, then their own power would be greatly strengthened and the struggle against them increased in difficulty. In either event, therefore, the liberal element in the colony had everything to fear from the policy pursued by the leaders. That policy, however, from the standpoint of the latter, found its justification in the fact that the suggested alterations in the franchise, and other religious matters, would end the power of the theocracy, which would surely go down before liberty of opinion. As the leaders had already hesitated at nothing, not even the blood of their victims, to maintain their theory of the church-state, so now they preferred to risk the practically certain loss of the charter and all its civil privileges, rather than yield to the claim of individual freedom. Fortunately, in spite of an apparent temporary success, they were to lose, and England win; and, owing to the people of England itself, the real cause of liberty was eventually to gain.

The chaotic state of New England had engaged the attention of the Council for Plantations and the Privy Council almost from the moment of the Restoration; while the sending of Commissioners to adjust differences, and to report on

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conditions, had been under consideration since early in 1662.[1] Two years later, action regarding the matters which had been considered as of prime importance was taken at last, and a commission was actually sent to New England; and New Netherland, with little trouble, was wrested from the Dutch. The two objects--of which the latter was considered the more important--were closely connected, and the most influential member of the Commission, Colonel Richard Nicolls, was appointed Governor of the new province of New York. Of the other three Commissioners, Samuel Maverick was undoubtedly useful, from his great knowledge of Massachusetts affairs, although otherwise unfitted, from his strong partisanship; but neither Sir Robert Carr nor George Cartwright possessed the qualifications to ensure successful results, although the latter was able and conscientious in his work.[2]

Two series of instructions were issued to the Commissioners for their guidance, the one public and the other confidential, as was also the custom of Massachusetts in sending agents to England. In the first, it was ordered that the Commission should consider the best means for reducing the Dutch, investigate the condition of the Indians and of public education, and see that the Navigation Acts were observed, and that, according to the laws of England, no one was debarred from the free exercise of his religion. In the confidential instructions, these points were repeated with additional details, the Commissioners being further required to examine the various charters and the laws passed; to have, if possible, a General Assembly elected in Massachusetts, in which the members would be favorably inclined toward the King, and to have an acceptable governor and commander of the militia appointed

[1. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, pp. 22, 24 f., 30, 32, 110, 128; Acts Privy Council, Colonial, 1613-80, pp. 308, 338; Clarendon Papers, p. 43. Cf. Kay, English Colonial Administration under Clarendon, pp. 75 ff.]

[2. Professor Osgood considered that, "taken as a whole, the appointments were as wise as under the circumstances could reasonably be expected." American Colonies, vol. III, p. 172. For the opposition to Maverick’s appointment, vide Clarendon Papers, pp. 48 ff.]

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or elected. They were to try to secure the cooperation of the other four colonies, and, in both sets of orders, were instructed to avoid giving offense.[1] The King also wrote a conciliatory letter to each of the colonies, in which he spoke of the calumnies against them, the difficulty of settling boundary disputes among themselves, and other matters requiring investigation and settlement.[2] In the commissions issued to Nicolls and the others, they were empowered to hear complaints and appeals, and to take measures for settling the peace of the country.[3]

In Massachusetts the news of the sending of the Commissioners created considerable alarm, and the General Court passed orders that none of their force of under-officers or soldiers should be allowed to land, except unarmed and in small numbers. The fort on Castle Island was ordered to be manned and prepared, sentries posted, and the charter hidden.[4]

In July, the Commissioners arrived at Boston, and presented their commissions and the King’s letter to the Court, together with that part of their instructions which related to raising a force against the Dutch. The request was complied with, and the Court also hastily passed a new election law, which ostensibly made the franchise independent of a religious test, but which in practice could have no such effect. According to the new law, all church members, regardless of property qualifications, were given the franchise, as before, but non-church members were required to be freeholders and householders, to present certificates signed by ministers that they were orthodox in belief and not vicious in their lives, to be elected as freemen by the General Court, and to possess an estate which paid a tax of ten shillings in a single levy. There were other requirements, also; but the fact that not one man in a hundred was said to have the property qualification required only from non-church members showed the farcical nature of the law. The enactment has sometimes been called

[1. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, pp. 200 ff.; N. Y. Col. Docts, vol. III, pp. 51 f.]

[2. Ibid., pp. 61 ff.]

[3. Ibid., pp. 61 ff.]

[4. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 101, 102, 110.]

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[image: Letter from the Earl of Clarendon to the Governor of Connecticut]

"shrewd"; but, in reality, it deceived no one, least of all the Commissioners, and its obvious disingenuousness served only to prejudice the case of the colony still further. Yet, in writing to the King, the colonial government stated that, in passing this law, they had applied themselves "to the utmost to sattisfy" him in "so farr as cloth consist with conscience of our duty towards God, and the just liberties and priviledges" of their patent.[1]

Nor was the character of the rest of the petition, or of the letters which they wrote, asking aid, to Boyle, the head of the Society for Propagating the Gospel, and to Lord Clarendon, of a sort likely to improve the opinion held regarding the colony. It was obviously impossible to comply with their request to withdraw the Commission. In a just and temperate reply, the King pointed out that investigation by such a body had been the only method left to the English government to inform itself as to conditions in the colonies. Nor did Boyle take any different view of the matter; and Clarendon wrote of the petition: "I am so much a friend to your colony, that if it had been communicated to nobody but myself, I should have disswaded the presenting the same to his Majesty"; and pointed out the impossible character of the complaints and demands.[2]

The double nature of the Commissioners’ duties now served to interrupt their work in Massachusetts; and until the beginning of the following year, they were occupied at New Amsterdam, and on the Delaware, in settling matters in the conquered Dutch colony--among others, the adjustment of its boundary with Connecticut. The case of the boundary between that colony and Rhode Island also came up; and although the final disposition was left for the home government, it was settled, in so far as the colonies were concerned, by erecting the disputed territory into a separate province, to be known as the King’s Province. The jurisdiction wasgiven to

[1. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 118, 205, 130. Cf. McKinley, Suffrage Franchise, pp. 324 ff.; Clarendon Papers, pp. 83 ff.]

[2. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, p. 282; Hutchinson, History, vol. I, pp. 464 f.]

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Rhode Island, while the claims of Massachusetts and the Atherton Land Company were properly declared invalid.[1]

Throughout their dealings with Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Plymouth, the Commissioners had met with little or no opposition; and it was only upon their reassembling at Boston, about the first of May, 1665, that the real struggle began.[2] Endicott had recently died, and Bellingham had been elected governor. The negotiations between the new government and the Commissioners, however, were entered upon with some bad feeling upon both sides. The Commissioners had previously asked that all the inhabitants be summoned to attend the Court, in order that the King’s views might be made known to them directly; but this somewhat impossible plan had been discouraged, if not secretly hindered, by the colonial government, and many false statements regarding the Commission had also been circulated, tending to throw discredit upon them--all of which they naturally resented.[3]

The Commissioners now made known all of their public instructions, and the Court made answer to their various requests and accusations. In regard to some of the minor matters, such as public education, there was no difficulty; but in regard to the more important ones, except issuing writs in the King’s name, the colony virtually had no case. The new oath of allegiance, which the Court had had drawn up, had been purposely vitiated by the insertion of a clause referring to the charter, and can be considered only as an attempt to deceive the Commissioners and the home government, which it failed to do. As to ecclesiastical matters, the Court stated merely that they followed "the word of the Lord," which, as they denied any interpretation of that word except their own, meant that they followed their own opinions, and refused to allow any one else to have any. Their statement, in a later paper, that "the authority here have not imposed upon church or people any one particular forme or order, for the restreijning

[1. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 175 ff.; Clarendon Papers, pp. 90 f.; Cal. State Pap., Col. 1661-68, pp. 202, 286.]

[2. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 177.]

[3. Ibid., pp. 173, 179-184.]

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or limiting them in the exercise of their devotions towards God," and their reference to "the great freedome" in religious matters, is startling in its distortion of the truth, in view of the laws then on their statute- books, and of their consistent course of persecution, from the Brownes in 1628 to the last Quaker hung in 1660. In response to another request of the English government, at this very time, they flatly denied permission to any law-abiding citizen to use his prayer-book, on the ground that "it will disturbe our peace in our present enjoyments." Referring to the Navigation Acts, they could make no better defense than to say that they were not conscious that they had "greatly violated the same," and that any laws apparently against them had been repealed.[1]

It is needless to follow the details of the controversy, which culminated in the struggle over the question of appeals. These had already been heard in Rhode Island by the Commissioners, under the authority of somewhat conflicting clauses in their instructions and commissions; and it was now undertaken to hear two in Boston. One of them concerned an individual, who seems to have been of a worthless sort, and the other, a violation of the Navigation Act. The General Court refused to allow the proceedings, claimed a breach of the charter, and officially warned all citizens not to attend the hearings, which were never held, as the Commissioners had no force to uphold their authority, even had they cared to employ it.[2] Soon after this, the Commission left Boston, both the colony and the king’s officers making long reports to the government in England.[3]

The whole contest had now obviously reached the fundamental point of sovereignty, which was clearly stated in a letter to Massachusetts, a few weeks later, from Carr, Cartwright, and Maverick, who were then in New Hampshire. "The king did not grant away his Soveraigntie over you,"

[1. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 177 ff., 200 f., 202 ff., 220 f.]

[2. Ibid., pp. 209 ff., 216 ff.]

[3. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, pp. 341 ff.; Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 274 ff.]

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they wrote, "when he made you a Corporation. When His Majesty gave you power to make wholesome laws and to administer justice by them, he parted not with his right of judging whether those laws were wholesom or whether justice was administered accordingly or no. When His Majesty gave you authority over such of his subjects as lived within the limits of your jurisdiction, he made them not your subjects nor you their supream authority." Unpalatable as these words may have been to the Massachusetts Court, there can be no doubt that they expressed the truth, as did also the Commissioners’ warning that "striveing to grasp too much, may make you hold but a little." The future was clearly fore-shadowed. "’T is possible that the Charter which you so much idolize may be forfeited," the Commissioners added, "until you have cleared yourselves of those many injustices, oppressions, violences, and blood for which you are complained against, to which complaints you have refused to answer."[1] There was, indeed, to be no other course. If Massachusetts under her charter should persist in considering herself superior to the power which had granted it, that power would have no option but to recognize her complete independence or to annul the charter.

In New Hampshire, the acts of the three Commissioners were ill-judged and but little likely to reflect credit upon the king, or to secure the adherence of the people, while Massachusetts by prompt and forceful measures asserted her claims in the face of the royal agents.[2] In Maine, the latter attempted to organize a temporary government, pending the settlement of the dispute between Massachusetts and Gorges, and they likewise endeavored, even more unsuccessfully, to set up administrative machinery in the territory east of Pemaquid, which had been granted to the Duke of York. Within less than three years, Massachusetts, assisted by the desire of the

[1. N. Y. Col. Docts., vol. III, p. 99.]

[2. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 265 ff.; New Hampshire Provincial Papers, vol. I, pp. 270 ff.; N. Y. Col. Docts., vol. III, pp. 99 ff.; Clarendon Papers, pp. 72 ff.; Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, pp. 310 f., 314.]

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inhabitants for a settled government, had once more taken the province under her jurisdiction, although not without local opposition.[1]

In what had been considered their most important work, the reduction of the Dutch and the establishment of the English authority at New York, the Commissioners had been entirely successful, as they had been also in their relations with the three southern colonies in New England; and the settlement of the dispute between Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the Atherton Company was of great benefit to the colonies. In the matter of Massachusetts, however, they had completely failed. Three of them advised taking away the charter, while Maverick made several suggestions, including the prohibiting of trade with the recalcitrant colony, as did Nicolls also.[2]

In 1666, the King sent a circular letter to the various colonies, expressing satisfaction with all except Massachusetts, whose claim of independent sovereignty, he noted, was "a matter of such high consequence as every man discerns where it must end"; and he commanded the colony to send four or five agents to England, including Bellingham and Hathorne, to answer the charges against her.[3] This the Court flatly refused to do, and so notified the King, though they sent him their prayers for his eternal happiness.[4] Their refusal, however, by no means met with unanimous approval among the influential elements in the colony. A petition was presented to the Court, signed by a hundred and seventy-one individuals, including such names as Winslow, Brattle, Gerrish, Hale, Coffin, Perkins, Hubbard, and others of note in Boston, Salem, Newbury, and Ipswich, while most of the people of Hingham were said to have signed also, although their deputy refused to deliver their

[1. N. Y. Col. Docts., vol. III, p. 101; Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, pp. 191 f., 348, 569; Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 370 f., 400 f.]

[2. N. Y. Col. Docts., vol. III, p. 102; Clarendon Papers, p. 70; Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, p. 416.]

[3. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68, pp. 372 f.]

[4. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. ii, p. 317.]

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petition.[1] The signers pleaded that nothing further be done justly to offend the home government, and that the agents asked for be sent. They pointed out that "the doubtful interpretation of the words of a patent, which there can be no reason should ever be construed to the divesting of a sovereign prince of his royall power over his naturall subjects and liege people, is too frail a foundation to build such a transcendent immunity and privilege upon."[2]

But those attempting to maintain the power of the theocracy would not be turned from their course, though by it they made the eventual loss of the charter both necessary and certain. Owing to the fact that England was now at war with both Holland and France, neither time nor thought could be given to a rebellious colony, and Massachusetts was to be allowed to go her way for another decade. Her own rulers, however, had definitely determined what her fate should be when the authorities in England should once more be free to act. In a little more than that period, she was to find herself, without a charter and without a friend, defenseless before the last of the Stuarts; and it was only the final revolt of the people of England against that dynasty which was to save her from the full effects of the policy of her theocracy, and to secure to all her citizens the same measure of political equality that was enjoyed by their neighbors.

[1. Clarendon Papers, pp. 127, 132 ff.; Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 317 f.; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, Series II, vol. VI, pp. 469 ff.]

[2. Clarendon Papers, p. 133.]

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DURING the quarter of a century preceding 1675, the growth of the New England colonies, both in numbers and resources, had been marked. Their refusal, on the one hand, to observe such of the imperial laws as might in any way hamper their commerce, and, on the other, the opportunities offered by the growth of the Empire, under those laws, had resulted in an enormous expansion, comparatively, in the colonies’ inter-colonial and foreign trade. With no Indian war of any magnitude for a generation, and with ample areas of free land upon which to expand, the frontier extended rapidly, and the population doubled. At the opening of the inter-racial conflict which is the subject of this chapter, the settlers probably numbered about fifty-two thousand, of whom approximately thirty-seven thousand were located in the seaboard colonies from Maine to Plymouth, three thousand in Rhode Island, and twelve thousand in Connecticut.[1] The numbers of the Indians can be estimated with even less certainty than those of the whites; but it is probable that the colonists outnumbered them by at least four to one.[2] The Narragansetts, who were

[1. There are no exact figures. The estimate in Century of Population Growth, pp. 4 ff., is about 54,000. Dexter, Estimates of Population in American Colonies, gives about the same (pp. 26 ff.). Palfrey estimates from 40,000 to 45,000 in 1665 (History, vol. III, pp. 351 ff.). If we accept the usual military ratio of one military effective to five persons, a contemporary estimate in 1675 by [William?] Harris gives 44,000 which would be increased by the fact that Massachusetts insisted upon carrying a smaller proportion of the military burden than the other colonies. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76, p. 220. L. K. Mathews’s estimate of 120,000, in her generally accurate Expansion of New England (p. 56), may be taken from Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76 p. 362, where that greatly exaggerated figure is given, but as a query, and is disproved by the additional statistics of 13,000 families and 16,000 effectives given in the same statement. Osgood adopts the figure of 80,000 (American Colonies, vol. I, p. 543).]

[2. Palfrey’s suggestion of about equal numbers for the two races seems to have little foundation. History, vol. III, p. 167. On the other hand, Osgood’s estimate of only 10,500 (American Colonies, vol. I, p. 543) seems a little low.]

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by far the most numerous, as well as the most powerful, may have counted five thousand individuals in all.[1]

The geographical relations of the two races had been almost as greatly altered, in a generation, as had their numerical proportions. At the time of the Pequot war, in 1637, at least four fifths of the entire white population formed a compact mass along the eastern shore of the present state of Massachusetts. The scattered settlements of Maine and New Hampshire, the handful of people about Narragansett Bay, and the beginnings of the River Towns in Connecticut, were but isolated outposts in what was otherwise an unbroken wilderness, peopled only by the savages. The whites were thus hemmed in on every side except the ocean.[2] By 1675, the situation in southern New England had been completely reversed. The settled area, which by that year extended westward from the sea one third of the way across Massachusetts, was continued from Cape Cod along the Sound and up the Connecticut River, and the western Massachusetts towns were scattered up the valley of the latter as far as Northfield. It was now the Indian who found himself, not simply far outnumbered, but entirely surrounded, by his white neighbors. It was only in the northeastern settlements, where the English population was much sparser, and where the short rivers and broken uplands offered no attractions to tempt the settlers from the coast, that the earlier conditions still prevailed, and the savages as yet had free range.

In the Puritan colonies, the practical identity of church and town, and the whole social, religious, and political life of the people precluded any wide dispersal of individual settlers in the wilderness. Even when individuals wished to go off by themselves, they were, as a rule, not allowed to do so, and Plymouth was not the only colony to take drastic measures to discipline such as preferred "liveing lonely and in a heathenish way from good societie."[3] The unit of the southern New

[1. Hodge, Handbook, vol. II, p. 29.]

[2. The maps in Mathews’s Expansion of New England are of great value in studying the movement of the frontier.]

[3. Plymouth Records, vol. V, p. 169.]

[image: Demand for Surrender of Sir Edmund Andros]

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England frontier was not the solitary hunter or trapper, not even the family of the pioneer farmer, but the town. When a bit of the wilderness was cleared, it was to plant therein, not an isolated cabin, but the homes of an organized community, fully equipped with a church and town government, destined, almost at once, to be a new centre of civilization alien to the savage, permanent, irremovable, expanding. When a French trader or trapper plunged into the forest, and the green leaves closed behind him, it was to mingle with the life of the natives, which, in its main aspects, flowed on unaltered by his presence. When, on the other hand, Englishmen cleared their fields, built a town and a church, and by virtue of their title-deeds claimed undivided ownership of their newly acquired square miles of land, it was as if they had planted a great rock in the stream of savage life, which must thereafter flow around this new obstruction. As the English frontier crept ever farther and farther inland, from the shores of ocean and Sound, and up the valleys of such streams as the Merrimac, Thames, or Connecticut, and town succeeded town, it was as if, adding stone to stone, great dykes were being built, which more and more dammed up the waters of native life. It was almost inevitable that a point would be reached when these imprisoned waters would burst forth, and possibly carry away all New England in their flood.

The land-hunger of the whites, however, was insatiable. Almost any trouble with the natives became a sufficient excuse for an extorted cession of territory, either immediate or deferred. From the very beginning, the English had recognized an Indian title to the country, as distinct from the rights conveyed by the king in his patents. Indeed, in view of the use to which the settlers wished to put the lands, and the basis upon which they necessarily lived in relation to the native occupants, they could not well do otherwise, and peaceful possession was cheaply secured at the expense of a few coats or hoes. But, as we saw in an earlier chapter, the Indian theory of ownership was entirely different from that of the whites; and although the English, for the most part, observed

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the legal forms of their own race, the parchments which the savage signed with his mark were as ethically invalid as a child’s sale of his inheritance for a stick of candy. Not only, in the beginning, had the natives failed to understand the nature of the transaction itself, but in their utter ignorance of Europe, and of what was bound to ensue from the steady stream of emigration thence, they could not foresee--what was reasonably clear to the colonists--that the result of their having welcomed the stranger would eventually be their own annihilation or completely altered status.

Whatever may be thought of the abstract justice of the earlier purchases, as the whites increased in numbers and comparative power, and as their first fears of the savages, and the desire to convert them, gave place to dislike, contempt, spiritual indifference, and self-confidence, their dealings with them sank to a lower ethical plane. It took but a few years for the methods of land-acquisition to become greatly modified. It was no longer considered necessary to treat with the Indian as an equal, whose just title could be acquired only for a valuable consideration. The theory was formulated that the native could be punished for a breach of the Englishman’s laws, and that the fine or damage imposed might take the form of a cession of land. Troubles with the savages, on a larger scale, resulted in making use of the title by conquest, by which the larger part of Connecticut was acquired. Later, in the case of the Narragansetts, as we have already seen, overdue tribute, of questionable validity, was used by a speculative land company as a basis for advancing money on mortgage, by means of which it was hoped to obtain the rich territorial possessions of that entire tribe. All the colonies, indeed, in order to protect the Indians from the commoner forms of fraud, and themselves from the dangerous results of disputes, had made it illegal for individuals to bargain for land; and the laws requiring the general courts to pass upon all land-dealings were wise and just, and, undoubtedly, prevented much petty trickery and mischief. It is needless to point out, however, the subtle temptation for the colonies to pick a

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quarrel with the natives, to interfere with their internal affairs, or to conduct some little military expedition, when the result was likely to be the acquisition of desirable lands by a mere show of force.

As the whites encroached more and more upon the Indians, the lands of the latter gradually came to be looked upon as reservations, upon which their native owners were allowed to live until a convenient opportunity, or the growing needs of the settlers, might bring about a farther advance. Moreover, as the Indian lands dwindled in extent, and the whites rapidly increased numerically, in proportion to the natives, the settlers adopted an attitude of superiority and authority over the native tribes. This really amounted to establishing a protectorate over them, and relegated them to the rank of dependent peoples shorn of all sovereign power. It was a natural evolution in the relations between the two races, but was no more acceptable to the Indians for that reason. Nor were the Puritans, who were by nature harsh and overbearing, and who failed to display even the ordinary good manners of the time in their dealings with the Dutch, likely to exhibit any great amount of tact or courtesy in those which they had with the despised heathen and "children of the devil." Personal pride and a strict observance of etiquette were marked characteristics of the savages, and chiefs and sachems could not fail to be stung to the quick when they were summoned, with more and more frequency, and less and less courtesy, to travel long distances and answer to complaints before the courts of Plymouth or Massachusetts, with but little regard for their dignity or standing among their own people.

Not seldom, moreover, they knew that such a demand was but the prelude to extending English authority, and sending them home shorn of possessions and respect. To cite, as an example, a case somewhat closely connected with the events of this chapter, in 1671, as a sequel to a rumored rising of the Indians in Plymouth Colony, the Squaw Sachem Awashunks was summoned to appear; and having done so voluntarily, she was required to submit "the disposall of her lands to the

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authoritie" of the colony, and was forced to engage herself to pay L50, to recompense the English for their trouble in the matter. As it was impossible that she could pay any such sum, the eventual "disposall" of her lands would not be difficult to foresee.[1] Land, as Roger Williams wrote, was becoming "one of the gods of New England," and judicial punishments were coming curiously often to involve forced concessions regarding coveted bits of territory. Subtly, and perhaps unconsciously, but no less surely, the land-hunger of the whites was poisoning the wells of justice.

As a result of the relations, territorial and political, which were developing between the races, and as a natural corollary of the protectorate theory, the English were also gradually enacting, on the one hand, a body of law applicable among themselves to the Indian only, and, on the other, forcing the "protected" Indians to observe English law, even when living apart from the settlers. Such regulations as Connecticut passed for the Pequots on their reservation in the spring of 1675 were evidence of what all the protected Indians might expect in time. Any native, for example, heathen or Christian, who profaned the Sabbath day by hunting, fishing, carrying firewood, or other misdemeanors, was to be fined or whipped; while all were ordered to "heare the word of God preached by Mr. Fitch, or any other minister sent amongst them," subject to four shillings fine or corporal punishment.[2] A most unjust law, in view of the well-understood inability of the Indian to withstand the temptation of strong waters, and the willingness of the colonists, in spite of legal prohibition, to sell them to him, was that which provided that any native found drunk should have to labor twelve days for whoever accused him and proved the case, one half of the proceeds of his labor to go to the accuser, and one half to the county treasury. It was only necessary, therefore, secretly to induce a savage to take one or two drinks, in order to secure six days’ forced labor from him gratis.[3] We need not credit the preposterous

[1. Plymouth Records, vol. V, p. 75.]

[2. Conn. Col. Records, vol. II, pp. 575 f.]

[3. Ibid., p. 257.]

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contemporary accusation that the Massachusetts government, under a similar law, connived at making Indians drunk, so as to hasten the work on Castle Island, in order to realize the ample possibilities for evil in such a statute.[1]

The close proximity in which the whites and natives dwelt in many places was the source of endless friction and petty annoyance, particularly to the Indians. The live-stock of the settlers was forever being allowed to stray into the cultivated lands of the savages; and at the time of the troubles in 1671, the colony of Plymouth had to appoint committees in no less than eleven different towns, "to view the Damage done to the Indians by the Horses and Hoggs of the English."[2] The question of firearms was the subject of frequent legislation by the colonial courts, and of friction with the natives, in the altered condition of whose life they had become practically essential as a means of procuring food.[3] Notwithstanding this fact, and the obvious one that the guns, having been paid for by the Indians with their own money, were their property, the English, frequently, when alarmed by rumors of hostility, required that the savages deliver all their arms into the hands of the authorities, considering as enemies those who refused.[4] Not only was this a hardship and a humiliation, but, on a number of occasions, the English refused to return the weapons, simply confiscating them. In 1671, for example, in Plymouth, after Philip had been required to deposit the guns of his people with the Court, that body determined that they were "justly forfeit," and coolly divided them among the towns of the colony.[5] At one stroke, not only were the natives deprived of their means of livelihood and defense, but the weapons, which they had honestly bought, were thus, by legalized robbery, turned against themselves. No individual with the instinct of self-respect and self-preservation

[1. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76, p. 307. This document, apparently by Capt. Wyborne, was used in the Mason-Gorges case against Massachusetts.]

[2. Plymouth Records, vol. V, p. 62.]

[3. Cf. Conn. Col. Records, vol. I, pp. 74, 79, 163, 263; Massachusetts Records, vols. IV, pt. ii, p. 564, and V, pp. 44, 304; Plymouth Records, vol. V, p. 64.]

[4. E.g., Conn. Col. Records, vol. I, p. 240.]

[5. Plymouth Records, vol. V, p. 63.]

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could fail to see that his eventual choice would lie between resistance and virtual slavery.

The missionary efforts of the English differed from those of the French precisely as did their exploitation of the land. In French America, the religious counterpart of the lonely trapper or trader was the Jesuit priest, who, cross in hand, and frequently without a companion, penetrated to the far depths of the forest, to carry his message to the heathen wherever found. In New England, however, as it was the town and not the trader that pushed the frontier forward, so the lonely missionary was replaced by the organizer of communities, and the savages on the fringe of civilization were gathered into villages within the bounds of white settlement, there to have the gospel preached to them, and to be joined in a covenanted church. Such work was practically negligible in Rhode Island and Connecticut, but, by the outbreak of Philip’s War, had made considerable progress in Massachusetts and Plymouth. In the latter two colonies, the labors of the Reverend John Eliot, who had translated the Bible into the Indian tongue, of Thomas Mayhew, Richard Bourne, and others,--paid for almost wholly with funds raised in England,--had resulted in the gathering of perhaps four thousand converts.[1] A considerable number of these "Praying Indians," as they were called, were scattered in villages on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, and in some twenty localities in Plymouth, and about eleven hundred were located in Massachusetts. Of the latter, the earlier and most dependable ones dwelt in the seven towns of Chelmsford, Littleton, Natick, Marlborough, Hopkinton, Grafton, and Stoughton, which were located at intervals of a dozen miles or so along the frontier of the eastern settlements, and which might have been used as a possible line of defense against any hostile movement from the unoccupied central portion of the colony, which lay between them and the towns of the Connecticut River.[2] In

[1. D. Gookin, "Historical Collections of the Indians of New England," Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Series I, vol. I, pp. 195 ff. For the work of these men, which deserves all praise, vide the tracts reprinted in Ibid., Series III, vol. IV.]

[2. D. Gookin, "Christian Indians," in Archeologia Americana, vol. II, p. 435.]

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a large proportion of cases, the conversion seems to have been genuine, and the Indians, more particularly in the seven towns named, to have become sincere friends of the English, although the more recent converts in the Nipmuck country soon went over to the enemy.

To the bulk of the savages, however, the humdrum existence led by their praying brethren in the little reservations allotted to them by the English, and their position of humble dependence upon the white lords of the soil, could hardly make a serious appeal. The past was too recent, and its contrast with the present was too vivid. It was becoming clear to the dullest witted that the future could hold little else, however, unless the power of the whites could be broken once and for all.

Massasoit, the aged Sachem of the Wampanoags, who had been a consistent friend to the settlers since 1620, died in the winter of 1660-61, and his son Alexander, who succeeded him, also died a few months later. In fact, his death is said to have been due, in part, to his anger and chagrin at having been forcibly seized by the authorities of Plymouth when called upon to make his appearance before them.[1] The change of relations between the whites and Indians was well exemplified by the difference between the formal and dignified embassy sent from Plymouth in 1620, to visit Massasoit and to negotiate a treaty with him, and the "eight or ten stout men," under Major Winslow, who surprised Alexander in his hunting- lodge, seized his arms, and commanded him to travel to that same Plymouth, to appear before the governor.

Philip had not long succeeded his brother Alexander as sachem, when he, in turn, was curtly summoned to appear before the Court, to clear himself of rumored disloyalty. Although nothing whatever was proved, and Philip offered to leave another of his brothers as hostage, he was forced to sign a treaty ratifying all former ones, acknowledge himself an English subject, and agree not to alienate any of his lands

[1. W. Hubbard, History of the Indian Wars in New England (ed. S. G. Drake, 1865), vol. I, p. 50. A more favorable account of the Alexander incident is given in a letter from John Cotton to Increase Mather, in 1677. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Series IV, vol. VIII, pp. 233 f.]

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without the consent of the Court.[1] Five years later, on renewed rumors of his disloyalty, his arms were taken away, and he was again forced to appear before the magistrates. Although once more no evidence was produced against him, and his arms were returned, he was nevertheless required to give his note for L40 as part of the charge for the expedition which had been sent after him.[2] In 1671, for wholly inadequate causes, he was forced, not to make a new treaty, but, without option, to sign "several propositions," by one of which he had to agree to pay a fine of "one hundred pounds in such things as I have," although, as he had no such sum, he asked for three years in which to pay it. He was also required to acknowledge himself in subjection, not merely to the English Crown, but to the little colony of Plymouth; to pay an annual tribute; to sell land only subject to the colony’s approval; and, with exceeding unfairness, to agree in advance to submit, in case of any dispute between the colony and himself, to the verdict of the governor as arbitrator.[3] It was on this occasion, as already noted, that all the guns that his people had delivered to the English were confiscated.

This treatment, accorded to the son of that sachem to whom the now grasping colony had, in its infancy, owed its very life, and who had been its friend for over forty years, could not fail to goad him into rebellion, if, indeed, he had not already considered it. Within four years from the time when the son of Massasoit affixed his scrawling mark to the humiliating and confiscatory document, the storm broke which was to drench New England in a sea of blood.

In the absence of any written records of the Indians, from which the story of those four years or so of preparation upon their part might be ascertained, the nature and scope of Philip’s plans must remain wholly a matter of inference from the

[1. Plymouth Records, vol. IV, pp. 25 f.]

[2. Ibid., pp. 165 f.]

[3. Ibid., vol. V, p. 79. The accusations against him are on p. 78. These were only that he had refused to deliver some of his guns; that, on occasion, he had refused to journey to Plymouth when sent for; that he harbored enemy Indians; that he had misrepresented Plymouth to Massachusetts; and that he had been uncivil.]

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subsequent events. That he nursed his revenge, land carried on negotiations with other tribes for a simultaneous rising against the whites over a considerable territory, would seem to be well established. On the other hand, the time was more or less ripe for the inevitable conflict to occur throughout all the colonies. Once started, the example of a native rising would prove contagious; and there is little evidence to prove that the widespread movements along the seaboard were connected by threads that centred in the hut of the Wampanoag. His tribe itself was weak and inconspicuous, and in Philip’s apparent lack of personal bravery and some of the other qualities most admired in a savage leader, there is nothing to indicate--what, indeed, events tend to disprove--that he was personally popular among the natives. Nor, even if we grant that he was surprised into hostilities in that spring of 1675, before all his plans had matured, is there any evidence, in his later conduct of the campaign, of that great ability for organization which has sometimes been attributed to him. There seems to be no doubt, however, that at that time he was engaged in preparing for a general rising, and that he had the sympathy of some of the other New England tribes.

Meanwhile, the English seem to have been singularly oblivious to the realities of the situation. They claimed, and undoubtedly felt, that they had treated the natives with justice. In the beginning, they had naturally failed to understand the Indian character, government, and theory of property. As, on the one hand, they came to know these better, on the other, the contempt they developed for the heathen and the savage, who, incidentally, was in possession of lands coveted by the Saints of God, tended to lessen their belief in his abstract rights. Economically, they had outgrown their early dependence upon the native; and their increasing sense of safety, due to the rapidly developing disparity in numbers, tended to make them callous to the feelings of the "great naked dirty beast," as Colonel Church described Philip, and they ceased to fear the power of the savage without coming to respect the

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rights of the man.[1] They failed to realize the broader aspects of the struggle, and even the practical fact that they were driving a still powerful race of savages into a corner, where they were not likely to stand at bay without making, at some time, a supreme effort to escape.

When the Indians finally did strike back, the English not only were wholly unprepared but do not seem to have understood the results of their own acts. Instead of regarding the approaching conflict as an inevitable consequence of the relations between the two races, and as having been, more immediately, brought about by themselves, they looked upon it as sent from God; and in a hasty self-examination as to why the Deity should have so afflicted them, the Massachusetts General Court decided that He was then engaged in burning towns and murdering women and children along the frontier, because Massachusetts had become somewhat lax in persecuting the Quakers, and because her men had begun to wear periwigs and their women to indulge in "cutting, curling and immodest laying out theire haire."[2]

The genius of New England has never been military. Her people, in a cause in which they believe, can fight doggedly and well, but she has never given to the nation a great soldier, either as leader or organizer, and King Philp’s War presented no exception. From its nature, it was less a war than a series of raids by the savages and retaliatory expeditions by the English; but it was the only sort of war which the colonies could have expected, or for which they ought to have been prepared. There was, however, practically no intercolonial organization. The United Colonies, the efficiency of which as a war-machine had early been damaged by Massachusetts, had received another blow by the loss of a member when New Haven was absorbed by Connecticut. Although Plymouth’s suggestion, at that time, to dissolve the Confederacy entirely, had not been approved, the bond had become looser than ever, and under

[1. Cf. Winslow’s letter of justification in Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. I, pp. 56 f., and "Narrative of the Beginning of the War," in Acts United Colonies, vol. II, pp. 362 f.]

[2. Massachusetts Records, vol. V, pp. 59 f.]

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the altered articles, the representatives of the three remaining members were to meet only triennially.[1]

In spite of the invaluable material that the colonies possessed in the friendly Indians, none of them had been employed as spies among the enemy, of whose plans preceding the war the colonists seem to have had no information other than vague rumors. In spite of their experience, moreover, the settlers appear, in part, to have been curiously ignorant of Indian warfare. Even in the matter of weapons, they made the mistake, at first, of equipping men with the wholly useless pike; and in the earliest expeditions, the English carried the cumbrous old matchlock guns, which were much inferior to the newer flintlocks used by the savages.[2] The commissariat frequently broke down, and in a number of cases important expeditions had to be abandoned because of failure of supplies. The regulation, necessary on account of the jealousy of the several colonies, that, in joint operations, the ranking officer of the colony in which the operations happened to be conducted at the moment should be the commander- in-chief of the whole, naturally made friction and tended to confusion.[3] From the same spirit of jealousy, there also arose disputes, sometimes almost amounting to mutiny, between the troops of one colony and those of another, which were further fostered by the lack of unity in plans, and inadequate communication.[4] Insubordination was not always limited to the rank and file, and in the case of Colonel Moseley,--who had married a niece of Governor Leverett of Massachusetts,--rose to such a point, against both his superior officers and the state, as should have brought him to a court-martial.[5] As the war progressed, the difficulty of raising troops became great, both from lack of men in some places and from their disinclination to serve. In

[1. Acts United Colonies, vol. II, pp. 324, 319, 340 ff.]

[2. Cf. Massachusetts Records, vol. V, p. 47; S. G. Drake, Old Indian Chronicle (Boston,. 1836), p. 8; G. M. Bodge, Soldiers in King Philip’s War (Leominster, 1896), pp. 45 ff.]

[3. Acts United Colonies, vol. II, p. 359.]

[4. Cf. Bodge, Soldiers, pp. 150 f.]

[5. Mather, Philip’s War, p. 240 n.; Gookin, Praying Indians, pp. 495 f; Bodge, Soldiers, p. 76. For the mutiny of a Plymouth officer and his men, cf. Plymouth Records, vol. V, pp. 189 f. There were other cases.]

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Plymouth, it was ordered that boys under the military age of sixteen should be used for guard-duty; while any man pressed for service who refused to obey should be fined five pounds, or made to run the gauntlet, or both.[1] Connecticut had to offer her troops, officers as well as men, the plunder of the Indians, as to both their goods and their persons, in addition to the regular pay, and to forbid any male resident between the ages of fourteen and seventy to emigrate from the colony.[2] Massachusetts, "taking into consideration the great disappointment" that soldiers pressed for duty refused to serve, provided that those who continued refractory should be punished with death.[3] On the other hand, the drab coloring of the war, uninspiring as the conflict was in many of its aspects, was relieved over and over by exhibitions of a fine courage on the part of individual soldiers, and of a cool daring in the face of unspeakable horrors, shown by women as well as men.

The character of the war would, in any case, probably have been mainly a series of raids; but the fact that Philip had apparently to enter upon hostilities before his preparations were complete, and the lack of unity and organized effective action among the colonies, made the course of the contest even more desultory than it might otherwise have been. We cannot here give more than an outline of the chief events of the struggle, which was more important in its results than in its conduct.[4]

In the latter part of 1674, John Sassamon, a Christian Indian, discovered a plot among the natives of Namasket, and immediately informed the authorities of Plymouth, stating that he would be in danger of his life if Philip should learn of his disclosures.[5] His fears were fulfilled, and in January, 1675, he was murdered, apparently by Philip’s orders, the three Indians implicated in his death being seized, tried,

[1. Plymouth Records, vol. V, pp. 193, 198.]

[2. Conn. Col. Records, vol. II, pp. 418, 272.]

[3. Massachusetts Records, vol. V, p. 78.]

[4. The general reader may consult Ellis and Morris, King Philip’s War; New York, 1906. The volume is more trustworthy than the unfortunate slip in its opening sentence might seem to indicate.]

[5. Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. I, p. 61.]

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and executed by the English in the following spring.[1] The Squaw-Sachem Weetamoo, who seems to have been opposed to the rising, although she was the sister-in-law of Philip, also warned the English of what was planned; but they do not seem to have taken any measures for defense, or to have done anything at all beyond remonstrating with Philip.[2] He had already committed himself too far, however, to have drawn back, even if he would; and, in spite of the premature discovery of the design, the younger warriors from neighboring tribes began to come in and urge the immediate beginning of hostilities.

On June 24, at Swansea, after having provoked a settler to draw the first blood, the savages fell upon the whites, and killed eight or nine. Two more, who had been dispatched to get a surgeon, were waylaid and slain, and their bodies found by an embassy then on its way from the government of Plymouth to Philip. In the six months since the English had been told of the plot, they had been strangely inactive. Two days after the murders at Swansea, however, five companies were mustered, partly in Plymouth and partly in Boston, and were on the march.[3] A raid on the Indians by these united forces, on the 30th, so frightened the savages, that Philip and his followers fled from Mount Hope and took refuge in a swamp at Pocasset, although the intelligence service of the English, through their failure to use native scouts, was so imperfect that they were unaware of the move of the enemy, and did not follow up the pursuit. Pocasset was in the territory of Weetamoo, and the English, by driving Philip into her jurisdiction, and failing to follow him, practically forced her to join with him and his warriors.

Although, as yet, in spite of their ancient wrongs, the Narragansetts had shown no hostility, nevertheless, at the instant when the attack on Philip should have been followed up, the Massachusetts troops received orders to pass into the Narragansett country, and to "make peace with a sword in their

[1. Plymouth Records, vol. V, p. 367.]

[2. Acts United Colonies, vol. II, p. 363.]

[3. Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. I, pp. 66 ff.]

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hand."[1] Canonicus, the sachem, could not be found; but the Massachusetts agents, joined by those from Connecticut, negotiated a treaty with a few unimportant individuals, who were forced to obligate the tribe to join the English in making aggressive war on Philip, and to confirm all former land- grants.[2] The English must have realized, not only that such a treaty was not binding, but that, so far from gaining the most powerful of the New England tribes as allies, it would have just the opposite effect. On the other hand, had the Massachusetts troops remained with those of Plymouth, and pursued and captured Philip, the war might possibly have been ended at once, and the Narragansetts not have entered it at all.

Unless we assume the military incapacity of the Massachusetts Court, we can hardly avoid the suggestion that that colony, and perhaps Connecticut also, saw an opportunity to strengthen their claims to the rich lands possessed by the natives whom they were forcing into opposition, and desired, by being first on the spot and negotiating the farcical treaty, to establish a basis for future title. That the mind of Boston was not bent solely upon the defense of the frontier, or the devilish effects of periwigs, is suggested by a letter from that godly town on July 6, which announced that "the land already gained is worth L10,000."[3] And this in the first fortnight! The good dames--and their spouses--may be pardoned if they were tempted toward heresy regarding the fatal results of curling- tongs and switches.

The treaty negotiated, most of the Massachusetts troops were immediately ordered back to Boston, only about one hundred, under command of Captain Henchman, being left with those of Plymouth to guard the swamp in which Philip had taken refuge. After a skirmish on the 18th, these decided that it was "ill fighting with a wild beast in his own den," and resolved to starve Philip out. That wily savage, however, gave his cautious watchers the slip, and escaped to central

[1. Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. I, p. 75.]

[2. The text of the treaty is in Hubbard, vol. I, pp. 76 ff.]

[3. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76, p. 253.]

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Massachusetts, with his followers. Again owing to inadequate scouting, it was only after some days that the English found that they were guarding an empty trap, and then their pursuit had been too long delayed to be successful.[1]

Philip’s presence decided the Massachusetts Indians, with whom the colonial authorities were then negotiating. Captains Wheeler and Hutchinson, with small party of whites and three Christian Indians, who were sent to treat with the Nipmucks, were treacherously attacked near the place the savages had appointed for a parley, and about one third of the colonists were slain. The survivors fled to Brookfield, gaining that place in safety only with the help of the Christian Indians, who had warned them of the treachery in advance, without avail.[2] The town was attacked by the natives almost before the whites could reach it, all the buildings being burned except the one in which the inhabitants had taken refuge. After the inmates, for three days, had warded off the efforts of several hundred savages to set fire to the house which was their only protection, they were rescued by Major Willard and a troop from Lancaster, although the town had to be abandoned.[3]

The Springfield Indians now joined the enemy, and Connecticut and Massachusetts troops were concentrated at Hadley, under command of Major Pynchon. On the first of September, Deerfield was attacked for the first time, and most of the houses burned.[4] The following day the savages fell upon Northfield, killed eight persons, and destroyed the buildings.[5] A relief party, under Captain Beers, which, unaware of the

[1. Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. I, pp. 88 ff.; B. Church, History of King Philip’s War (ed. H. M. Dexter, Boston, 1865), pp. 25 ff.]

[2. Bodge, Soldiers, pp. 107 ff.; Gookin, Christian Indians, pp. 447 f.; Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. I, p. 99. The latter fails to state that the rescuers were natives. Wheeler, in his report, also ignored it, although he subsequently certified to the Indians’ good conduct.]

[3. Mather, Philip’s War, p. 68; Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. I, pp. 100 ff.]

[4. Mather, Philip’s War, pp. 72 ff.; Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. I, p. 110. For the traditional attack on Hadley, and the story of the regicide judge Goffe, vide S. Judd, History of Hadley (1905), Pp. 138 ff., and G. Sheldon, History of Deerfield (1895), vol. I, pp. 93 f.]

[5. Bodge, Soldiers, p. 130; Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. II, p. 44.]

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disaster, was bringing up supplies, was ambushed, and twenty men out of the thirty were killed after a desperate fight, the remainder taking refuge at Hadley, as did also the inhabitants of Northfield, who now abandoned their town.[1]

Heretofore, in the Massachusetts operations, Major Treat had been in command of the Connecticut forces, and Major Pynchon of those from the Bay Colony, Treat’s instructions having been to advise with Pynchon but to act with him only when convinced of the wisdom of a move.[2] Massachusetts now decided to abandon the field, and merely to garrison the towns; but this supine policy, which could not have been permanent, and was a virtual admission of defeat, did not satisfy Connecticut. As a result of negotiations, the United Colonies decided to raise the total number of troops to one thousand, and to put Pynchon in supreme command in the upper Connecticut Valley. The Commissioners confessed that they did not know how many troops were already in the field, or anything of the strength of the enemy.[3] This lack of information was characteristic both in the major conduct of the war and in minor operations.

Only a few days after these arrangements were made, Deerfield had been attacked again, and Captain Lathrop, with about sixty men, "the very flower of the county of Essex," was detailed to convoy some provisions accumulated there into Hadley. Although these troops were operating in a country filled with hostile savages, and the line of march lay in part through a dense forest, where they might easily be ambushed, the company had no scouts ahead, and many of the soldiers had stowed their arms in the carts, while they themselves gathered grapes by the roadside. Lathrop was familiar with the road and its dangerous places; but it was at one

[1. Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. I, p. 110; Mather, Philip’s War, p. 79; Bodge, Soldiers, p. 131.]

[2. Conn. Col. Records, vol. II, p. 358.]

[3. Ibid., pp. 364, 367. Massachusetts was to supply 527, Plymouth, 158, Connecticut, 315. The figures were based upon the new Articles of Confederation, which were unduly favorable to Massachusetts. Based upon population, they would probably have been about 640, 100, and 260, respectively.]

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of these, the spot where the trail crossed the little stream ever since known as Bloody Brook, that the troop encountered the fatal result of their criminal folly. As they were crossing the ford, with their heavy wagons lumbering in the mud, the Indian war-whoop rang out on all sides, and the soldiers fell under the bullets of their unseen foe. The massacre was virtually complete. Hardly a man escaped, and not one would have done so, had not Colonel Moseley with another small troop, heard the shooting and hurried to the rescue. He, in turn, was being forced back, and was facing annihilation, when Major Treat, having likewise heard firing, hastened up with some Connecticut troops and friendly Indians, and saved the day.[1] The survivors, however, who fell back upon Deerfield, were obliged to evacuate the town a few days later, it thus being the third surrendered to the enemy.

On September 26, a slight attack was made upon Springfield, followed by demonstrations against Hadley. Some troops having been hurried thither from Springfield, the Indians, successful in their ruse, if that had been their plan, returned and attacked that town in force, destroying it on October 5.[2] Major Appleton now replaced Pynchon as commander; but Treat having retired with part of his troops to Connecticut, in view of the danger threatening Hartford, his lieutenant refused to obey Appleton, as he considered Treat to be his immediate superior. The matter became a subject of dispute between the colonies, but, the danger to Connecticut having passed, Treat returned, and Connecticut troops continued to garrison the Massachusetts towns throughout the winter.[3]

Connecticut from the start had adopted the policy of utilizing to the full the services of the friendly Indians, which Massachusetts, for the most part had refused, with disastrous consequences. Not only had she failed to make use of them as scouts and troops, but by removing the Praying Indians

[1. Mather, Philip’s War, pp. 85 f.; Bodge, Soldiers, pp. 67, 135 f.; Sheldon, Deerfield, vol. I, pp. 100 ff.; Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. I, pp. 113 ff.]

[2. Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. I, p. 122; Mather, Philip’s War, p. 97.]

[3. Conn. Col. Records, vol. II, pp. 370, 372 ff., 380 ff.]

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from the line of towns in which they had been settled, and placing them in a concentration camp on Deer Island, she had weakened her whole line of defense.[1] But, unfortunately, it was not a question of merely failing to utilize valuable resources. Her treatment of her civilized natives, individually and collectively, must be considered as cruel and inhumane, although the ministers and the magistrates seem, on the whole, to have endeavored to restrain the lawless persecution of the mob, and the savagery of their more brutal leaders, such as Moseley. Innocent Indians were insulted, and plundered of their possessions, and, in some cases, their women and children were murdered in cold blood. Yet juries refused to convict the offenders, and the General Court frequently yielded to the clamor, until letters from England, and the discovery of a hideous plot by the whites to massacre all the converts gathered on Deer Island, awoke them to some sense of their duty. The blind fury against the Praying Indians was by no means confined to the rabble. Moseley, whose refusal to use their services in the war had cost many English lives, treated them at Marlborough and Nashobeh with the most wanton brutality, although the execution of a squaw, taken prisoner on his expedition near Hatfield, is, we hope, unique in American military history. The laconic note of her fate merely reads that she was "ordered to be torn in peeces by Doggs, and she was soe dealt withal."[2] It recalls, however, the earlier advice of Massachusetts, that the Indians be hunted down with mastiffs.[3] Although he was censured for his various acts of inhumanity and insubordination, no action was taken against Moseley by the authorities, who thus share his guilt; and so high did the feeling run that it became dangerous, even in Boston, for such men as Eliot and Gookin to speak a word in defense of the persecuted Christian natives.

In the early winter, it seemed as if the enemy had been successful everywhere. Philip, who apparently had not been

[1. Massachusetts Records, vol. V, pp. 46, 55, 57, 64, 84.]

[2. Mather, Philip’s War, p. 101 n.; Badge, Soldiers, p. 69; Gookin, Christian Indians, pp. 455 ff., 500 ff.]

[3. Acts United Colonies, vol. II, p. 168.]

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present in any of the fights, had gone into winter quarters near Albany, [1] but it is probable that the war had long since passed out of his control; and there is nothing to indicate any concerted plan governing the actions of the various tribes now, or soon to be, on the war-path. By far he most powerful of those surviving were the Narragansetts; and their Sachem Canonchet, the son of Miantonomo, both in his position and his ability, was probably a more important factor than Philip; although, as yet, in spite of the ancient wrong done him in the judicial murder of his father, and the recent act of the English in forcing the treaty of July 15 upon some of his people, the sachem had committed no overt act against the settlers. A number of hostile Indians, however, had fled to his country for refuge; and in October, either from a deliberate purpose to provoke him into active hostility, or in the vain hope that he would be forced into an alliance with them by threats, the Massachusetts authorities required him to sign a treaty ratifying the one of July 15, and agreeing to give up all refugees to the English.[2] It is doubtful whether the sentiment of his people would have permitted this surrender; but, in any case, little opportunity was given to test it, and on November 2, only two weeks after having forced Canonchet to sign a humiliating peace, the English abruptly declared war.[3] Old Uncas, who had hated the Narragansetts for a lifetime, had long been scheming to bring about the conflict, and the land possessed by Canonchet and the refugee Awashonks was a most potent argument. A journal-letter from a citizen of Boston, dated only a few days after the treaty with the Narragansett, complains of his not having delivered up the squaw-sachem, but that there was prospect of force being used, and that, if she could be captured, "her Lands will more than pay all the charge we have been at in this unhappy War."[4] About a week after the date of this letter, the Commissioners of the United Colonies, at the same meeting at which war was declared,

[1. Conn. Col. Records, vol. II, pp. 397, 407.]

[2. Acts United Colonies, vol. II, p. 360.]

[3. Ibid., p. 357.]

[4. Conn. Col. Records, vol. II, p. 236; Old Indian Chronicle, p. 36.]

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arranged for a levy of a thousand more troops, and an immediate expedition was planned against the Narragansetts, under command of Governor Winslow of Plymouth.[1] The Massachusetts Council, with an eye to the long-coveted country, proclaimed that, if her soldiers "played the man," and drove the Narragansetts out of it, the army should receive allotments of the land in addition to their pay.[2]

The various units of the new force, after sundry isolated skirmishes with the enemy, finally united at Pettisquamscott, late in the afternoon of December 18, and lay in the open that night in a severe snowstorm. The Indians, between three and four thousand in number, had taken refuge in a fortified position, on an island of four or five acres, in the middle of a large swamp, about sixteen miles from the English camp. Before daybreak, on the morning of the 19th, the army began its march, reaching the swamp about one in the afternoon. Some of the enemy were encountered upon its edge, but immediately fled, pursued, without order, by the English, straight to the entrance of the native fort. For three hours the fighting was desperate, and it was only after darkness began to fall that the colonists succeeded in capturing the Indians’ blockhouse and other works. Then came the same order which had been issued in the Pequot swamp fight thirty years earlier, and the torch was applied to the four hundred wigwams and accumulated stores of the savages. It is impossible to tell how many of the warriors fell in the fight, or how many of the old people, women, and children were roasted alive in the flames; but the contemporary estimates run from four hundred to a thousand or more. The English loss was about seventy killed and a hundred and fifty wounded.[3]

Although the Narragansetts had received a terrible blow, they had not been so nearly annihilated as had the Pequots

[1. Acts United Colonies, vol. II, p. 357; Conn. Col. Records, vol. II, p. 384; Massachusetts Records, vol. V, p. 69; Plymouth Records, vol. V, pp. 182 f.]

[2. Bodge, Soldiers, p. 180.]

[3. Ibid., pp. 190 f. Cf. Conn. Col. Records, vol. II, p. 398. Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. I, pp. 144 ff.; Mather, Philip’s War, p. 108; Church, King Philip’s War, pp. 53 ff. A Continuation of the State of New England (London, 1676), estimates the English losses as, killed and wounded, 207, and 600 Indians killed.]

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[image: Warrant Signed by Governor Winslow of Plymouth for the Sale of Indian Captives as Slaves]

in the preceding generation; and the English, in view of their own actions, could now look for nothing less than a war to the death, waged with a ferocity equal at least to their own. An immediate levy of a thousand additional men was arranged for, divided among the colonies, and a new expedition was sent into the Nipmuck country, where the Narragansetts had joined some of Philip’s forces.[1] The commissariat broke down, and the short campaign, known as "the hungry march," accomplished nothing. On February 10, the savages fell upon Lancaster and nearly destroyed the town. Within the next few weeks, attacks were made upon such widely separated points as Medfield, Northampton, Hatfield, Providence, Groton, Longmeadow, and Marlborough.

The Indians, however, had suffered severely during the winter from want of food, and, as spring came on, Canonchet realized that crops must be raised during the summer if the war were to be maintained. He proposed that the conquered lands in the Connecticut Valley be planted, and he himself, with a small party, volunteered to go back to Seakonk, near Mount Hope, to procure seed-corn. The venture cost him his life, for he was taken captive by a party of Connecticut men and Indians operating in the Narragansett country, and was immediately condemned to death. When told of the sentence, the savage, who possessed to the full the courage lacked by Philip, replied that "he liked it well that he should die before his heart was soft, or had spoken anything unworthy of himself."[2]

In spite of further attacks by the Indians, one as near Boston as Sudbury, the tide now turned in favor of the English throughout southern New England. A heavy blow was struck at the Upper Falls of the Connecticut, where a great company of natives had gathered to fish, and where Captain Turner inflicted a severe defeat upon them, in spite of his own heavy losses. The privations of the winter, the prospect of semi-starvation to come, the loss of Canonchet, and the breakdown

[1. Plymouth Records, vol. V, p. 184; Conn. Col. Records, vol. II, p. 391.]

[2. Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. II, p. 60.]

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of Philip as a leader, rapidly sapped the morale of the natives, who became disorganized and demoralized. Detachments of English hunted down and slaughtered or captured the scattered bands of savages. Philip, who had returned to his old home near Mount Hope, narrowly escaped being taken early in August, his wife and son falling into the hands of the English. A few weeks later, he himself was slain in a swamp, by one of Captain Church’s Indians, and the main phase of the war, which, by bearing his name, has unduly exalted his part in it, was over.[1]

Hostilities, however, continued in the eastern settlements of Maine and New Hampshire for two years longer. Owing to their scattered character, and the difficulty of inflicting any telling blow upon the savages, who could disappear into the limitless forests, and were supplied by the French with arms and other necessities, Maine suffered proportionately even more severely than its more populous neighbors to the south. The story of the war there is the record of tragedy after tragedy enacted in lonely farmhouse or isolated village. One episode only, and that because of its later effect upon the Indian relations of the settlers, need be alluded to. In the autumn of 1676, following the signing of a treaty in July and a proclamation by the Massachusetts Court, several hundred natives congregated at Major Waldron’s house at Dover, with the intention, apparently, of accepting terms of amnesty, and of testifying to their friendly relations with the whites, although there were some who had borne arms against them. Unexpectedly, they were all taken into custody by Massachusetts agents and carried off to Boston, and a large proportion of them was sold into slavery in the West Indies. There are various versions of the affair, and it is impossible to unravel the truth, but, whether rightly or not, the eastern Indians felt that they had been treacherously dealt with, and never forgot or forgave the transaction.[2] Massachusetts, moreover,

[1. Hubbard, Indian Wars, vol. I, p. 265; Church, King Philip’s War, pp. 145 ff.]

[2. Cf. Bodge, Soldiers, pp. 304 ff.; N. H. Prov. Papers, vol. I, pp. 354 ff.; Massachusetts Records, vol. V, p. 72.]

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[image: Reverend John Cotton’s opinion that Philip’s Son should be put to Death]

was unable to protect the eastern settlements; and the treaty finally made with the Indians, in the spring of 1678, carried the humiliating condition that the whites were to pay an annual tribute to the natives.[1] The unfortunate result of the war in that section was that the Indians felt themselves superior to the whites in power, and they had come to believe that the word of the latter could not be trusted.

The captives taken in Philip’s War were variously treated. Some, who were considered especially guilty, were killed, and great numbers were distributed among the whites as servants for a limited period. Many were sold into slavery in the West Indies.[2] Among these unfortunates were the wife and son of Philip, the latter a little lad of nine.[3] Even the life of this grandson of Massasoit hung in the balance, and the clergy, to whom the problem of his disposal was referred, advised that he should be slain; but, as usual, the people were more merciful than the ministers. Although even the Old Testament offered difficulties in the way of precedents, John Cotton and Increase Mather thought that they might be found, and called for the lad’s blood,[4] Mather pointing out that, although David indeed spared the life of little Hadad, it might have been better had he not. The saintly Eliot, who throughout the war had pleaded with the people of Massachusetts for justice and mercy for the Christian Indians, as Williams had pleaded for the Pequots a generation before, protested against the whole system of selling off the natives, and in a letter to the Governor and Council uttered the prophetic saying that "to sell soules for mony seemeth to me a dangerous merchandize."[5] But his voice, like Williams’s, found no echo.

The losses that the colonies had suffered were enormous. Maine did not recover for half a century, and there was not

[1. Belknap, History, vol. I, p. 129. He does not give the text, nor is it in the N. H. Prov. Papers, though there is a letter relative to it in the latter, vol. I, p. 365.]

[2. Conn. Col. Records, vol. II, pp. 297 f. The Assembly in Barbadoes drew a bill to prevent the importation of these Indian slaves from New England. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1674-75, p. 378.]

[3. Church, King Philip’s War, p. 127.]

[4. Their letters are in Mass. Hist. Sot. Coll., Series IV, vol. VIII, p. 689.]

[5. Acts United Colonies, vol. II, p. 452.]

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a white man left in Kennebec County. In Massachusetts sixteen towns were wholly destroyed or abandoned, and four in Rhode Island.[1] Along the entire New England frontier burned buildings and abandoned farms bore mute witness to the fury of the struggle. Plymouth reported her war expenses as L11,743, Connecticut hers as L22,173, and Massachusetts hers as L46,292, a total equivalent to-day of over $2,000,000.[2] One man out of every sixteen of military age had been killed. The struggle,