1643-1653] Workings of the Confederation.

159

When, in 1651, Parliament desired that Massachusetts surrender her charter granted by King Charles and receive a new one at its hands, for a year no notice was taken of the command; when at last England had a war with Holland on her hands, the Massachusetts men evasively replied that they were quite satisfied "to live under the government of a governor and magistrates of their own choosing and under laws of their own making." The General Court was also bold enough to establish a colonial mint (1652), and for thirty years coined "pinetree shillings," in the face of all objections. In 1653 Cromwell, always a firm friend to New England, was declared Lord Protector; yet Massachusetts did not allow the event to be proclaimed within her borders, and when he wished Massachusetts to help him in his war against the Dutch by capturing New Amsterdam, the colonial court somewhat haughtily "gave liberty to his Highness's commissioners "to raise volunteers in her territory. At the Restoration it was not until warning came from friends in England, that Charles II. was proclaimed in New England.

66. Disturbances in Rhode Island (1641-1647).

The sectaries

Over on Narragansett Bay the public peace continued to be disturbed by factious disputations. Because of the freedom there generously offered to all on Narra- men, the settlements of Rhode Island and gansett Bay. Providence were the harboring-place for dissenters of every class, who for the most part had been ordered to leave the other colonies. Many of these persons were of the Baptist faith, or held other theological views which would be considered sober enough in our day; but among them were numerous rank fanatics, whom no well-ordered society was calculated to please.

Some of Roger Williams's adherents had built Pawtuxet. To them came a band of fanatics, headed by The case of Samuel Gorton, described by his orthodox Gorton. neighbors as "a proud and pestilent seducer," of insolent and riotous carriage," but who was by no means so black as they painted him. The Pawtuxet settlers asked Massachusetts (1641) "of gentle courtesy and for the preservation of humanity and mankind," to "lend a neighbor-like helping hand" and relieve them of the disturber. At the same time they secured the annexation of their town to Massachusetts, so that it might be within the jurisdiction of the latter. Gorton and nine of his followers were taken as prisoners to Boston (1643), where they were convicted of blasphemy, and after four or five months at hard labor were released, with threats of death if they did not at once depart from Massachusetts soil.

Gorton went to England (1646) and appealed to the parliamentary commissioners, who declared that he might "freely and quietly live and plant" upon his land which he had purchased from the Indians at Shawomet (Warwick), on the western shore of Narragansett Bay. Edward Winslow of Plymouth was now sent over (1647) to represent Massachusetts in the Gorton case; and through him the plea was entered that the commissioners, being far distant from America, should not undertake the decision of appeals from the colonies; and moreover, that the Massachusetts charter was an "absolute power of government." The commissioners, in return, protested that they "intended not to encourage any appeals from your justice; "nevertheless, they "commanded" the General Court to allow Gorton and his followers to dwell in peace; but "if they shall be faulty, we leave them to be proceeded with according to justice." The offender was allowed to return, but his presence was haughtily

1641-1647.] Troubles in Rhode Island.

161

ignored; and when his settlement was threatened by Indians, he cited in vain the parliamentary order as a warrant for assistance.

67. Policy of the Confederation (1646-1660).

66

The sturdy and independent spirit of the colonists was expressed in words as well as in deeds. While Winslow was thus representing the colonists in England Expressions of indepen- he made his famous reply to those who were dence. disposed to criticise the formation of the New England confederacy as a presumptuous assertion of independence : If we in America should forbear to unite for offence and defence against a common enemy till we have leave from England, our throats might be all cut before the messenger would be half seas through.” A similar impatience of authority from England was expressed by Governor John Winthrop. An opinion which he delivered about this time betokened the proud and independent attitude of Massachusetts, and was prophetic of the spirit of the Revolution. By a legal fiction, when the king granted land in America it was held as being in the manor of East Greenwich. It was said that the American colonists were represented in that body by the member returned from the borough containing this manor, and were therefore subject to Parliament. Winthrop held, however, that the supreme law in the colonies was the common weal, and should parliamentary authority endanger the welfare of the colonists, then they would be justified in ignoring that authority.

Religious liberty was quite as dear to the New England people as political liberty. In 1645, under Scottish influence, Presbyterianism was established by Act of Parliament as the state religion of England. Massachusetts was, however, stoutly Inde

The Presbyterians.

!!

pendent, and furnished some of the chief champions for that faith during the great controversy which was then raging between the two sects on both sides of the water. A number of Massachusetts Presbyterians sought (1646) to induce the home government to settle churches of their faith in the colonies, and to secure the franchise to all, regardless of religious affiliation; but before they reached England to state their case the Independents were again in the ascendent, and the Puritan theocracy in Massachusetts was undisturbed. Two years later (1648) a synod of churches was held at Cambridge, at which was formulated a church discipline familiarly styled “the Cambridge platform." In it the Westminster Confession was approved, the powers of the clergy defined, the civil power invoked to " coerce churches which should" walk incorrigibly or obstinately in any corrupt way of their own," and the term "Congregational" established, to distinguish New England orthodoxy from "those corrupt sects and heresies which showed themselves under the vast title of Independency." In 1649 this platform was laid by the General Court before the several congregations, and two years later it was formally agreed to.

Dutch pos

It was hardly to be supposed that a people so little inclined to acknowledge the rights of England should Encroach- treat with greater respect those of Holland; ments upon and indeed they had the countenance of the sessions. home government in encroachments upon the Dutch colonies. In 1642 Boswell, who represented England at the Hague, advised his fellow-countrymen in New England to "put forward their plantations and crowd on, crowding the Dutch out of those places where they have occupied."

The New Englanders were not slow to adopt this aggressive policy. Settlements were pushed out west

1646-1652.] Presbyterianism and the Dutch.

163

ward from New Haven on the mainland, and southward

on Long Island. Peter Stuyvesant, then governor of New Netherlands, bitterly complained of these encroachments, — for the Dutch then claimed everything between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers, - and appealed to the federal commissioners to put a stop to them; but the answer came that the Dutch were selling arms and ammunition to the Indians, that their conduct was not conducive to peace, that they harbored criminals from the English colonies, and that the United Colonies proposed to "vindicate the English rights by all suitable and just means." Stuyvesant, who was a hot-headed man, would have liked to go to war with the New Englanders, but was informed by the Dutch West India Company that war cannot in any event be to our advantage the New England people are too powerful for us." The matter was finally (1651) left to arbitrators, who settled a provisional boundary line which "on the mainland was not to come within ten miles of the Hudson River," and which gave to Connecticut the greater part of Long Island.

the confederation in the Dutch War.

66

War broke out between England and Holland in 1652, and the Connecticut people were anxious to attack New Weakness of Netherlands, which had not ceased its depredations on the outlying settlements. All of the federal commissioners except those from Massachusetts voted to go to war; there was a stormy session of the federal court, in which Massachusetts endeavored in vain to override the other colonies. Connecticut and New Haven applied to Cromwell for assistance. He sent over a fleet to Boston, with injunctions to Massachusetts to cease her opposition. The General Court stoutly refused to raise troops for the enterprise, although it gave to the agents of Cromwell the privilege of enlisting five hundred volunteers in the