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measure which suggested itself was to stop emigration. For this purpose an edict was issued as early as 1634, but was of no effect. The officers of the government neglected to enforce the law. Four years later, more vigorous measures were adopted. A squadron of eight vessels, ready to sail from London, was detained by the royal authority. Many of the most prominent Puritan families in England were on board of these ships. Historians of high rank have asserted-but without sufficient proof-that John Hampden and Oliver Cromwell were of the number who were turned back by the detention. At all events, it would have been the part of wisdom in King Charles to allow all Puritans to leave his realm as fast as possible. By detaining them in England he only made sure the Revolution, and by so much hastened his own downfall.

CHAPTER XIV.

MASSACHUSETTS.-THE UNION.

NEW EW ENGLAND was fast becoming a nation. Wellnigh fifty towns and villages dotted the face of the country. Nearly a million of dollars had been spent in settling and developing the new State. Enterprises of all kinds were rife. Manufactures, commerce and the arts were rapidly introduced. William Stephens, a shipbuilder who came with Governor Winthrop to Boston, had already built and launched an American vessel of four hundred tons burden. Before 1640, two hundred and ninety-eight emigrant ships had anchored in Massachusetts Bay. Twentyone thousand two hundred people, escaping from English intolerance of Church or State, had found home and rest between Plymouth Rock and the Connecticut valley. It is not wonderful that the colonists began to cast about them for better political organization and more ample forms of government.

Many circumstances impelled the colonies to union. First of all, there was the natural desire of men to have a regular and permanent government. England, torn and distracted with civil war, could do nothing for or against her colonies; they must take care of themselves. Here was the western frontier exposed to the hostilities of the Dutch towns on the Hudson; Connecticut alone could not defend herself. Similar trouble was apprehended from the French on the north; the

English settlements on the Piscataqua were weak and defenceless. Indian tribes capable of mustering a thousand warriors were likely at any hour to fall upon remote and helpless villages; the prevalence of common interests and the necessities of common defence made a union of some sort indispensable.

The first effort to consolidate the colonies was ineffectual. Two years later, in 1639, the project was renewed, but without success. Again, in 1643, a measure of union was brought forward and finally adopted. By the terms of this compact, Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven were joined in a loose confederacy, called THE UNITED COLONIES OF NEW ENGLAND. The chief authority was conferred upon a general assembly, or congress, composed of two representatives from each colony. These delegates were chosen annually at an election where all the freemen voted by ballot. There was no president other than the speaker of the assembly, and he had no executive powers. Each community retained, as before, its separate local existence; and all subordinate questions of legislation were reserved to the respective colonies. Only matters of general interest-such as Indian affairs, the levying of troops, the raising of revenues, declarations of war and treaties of peace-were submitted to the assembly.

Provision was made for the admission of other colonies into the union, but none were ever admitted. The English settlement on the Piscataqua was rejected because of heterodoxy in religion. The Providence Plantations were refused for similar reasons. Should Roger Williams return to plague an assembly where an approved church-membership was the sole qualification for office? The little island of Rhode Island, with its Jewish republic, also knocked for admission; Anne Hutchinson's commonwealth was informed that Plymouth colony had rightful jurisdiction there, and that heresy was a bar to all petitions.

Until the year 1641 the people of Massachusetts had had no regular code of laws. At a meeting of the assembly in December of this year, Nathaniel Ward brought forward a written instrument which, after mature deliberation, was adopted as the constitution of the State. This fundamental statute was called the BODY OF LIBERTIES, and was ever afterward esteemed as the great charter of colonial freedom. It may be doubted whether any other primitive constitution, either ancient or modern, contains more wisdom than this early code of Massachusetts.

A further modification in the government was effected in 1644. Until this time the representatives of the people had sat and voted in the same hall with the governor and his assistant magistrates. It was now decreed that the two bodies should sit apart, each with its own officers

and under its own management. By this measure the people's branch of the legislature was made independent and of equal authority with the governor's council. Thus step by step were the safeguards of liberty established and regular forms of government secured.

The people of Massachusetts were little grieved on account of the English Revolution. It was for them a vindication and a victory. The triumph of Parliament over King Charles was the triumph of Puritanism both in England and America. Massachusetts had no cause to fear so long as the House of Commons was crowded with her friends and patrons. But in the hour of victory the American Puritans showed themselves more magnanimous than those of the mother-country; when Charles I., the enemy of all colonial liberties, was brought to the block, the people of New England, whose fathers had been exiled by his father, lamented his tragic fate and preserved the memory of his virtues.

During the supremacy of the Long Parliament several acts were passed which put in peril the interests of Massachusetts, but by a prudent and far-sighted policy all evil results were avoided. Powerful friends, especially Sir Henry Vane, stood up in Parliament and defended the colony against the intrigues of her enemies. Ambassadors, men of age and experience, went often to London to plead for colonial rights. Soon after the abolition of monarchy a statute was made which threatened for a while the complete subversion of the new State. Massachusetts was invited to surrender her charter, to receive a new instrument instead, and to hold courts and issue writs in the name of Parliament. The measure seemed fair enough, but the people of New England were too cautious to stake their all on the fate of a Parliament whose power was already waning. The requisition was never complied with. Cromwell did not insist on the surrender; no one else had power to enforce the act; and Massachusetts retained her charter.

The Protector was the constant friend of the American colonies. Even Virginia, though slighting his authority, found him just as well as severe. The people of New England were his special favorites. To them he was bound by every tie of political and religious sympathy. For more than ten years, when he might have been an oppressor, he continued the benefactor, of the English in America. During his administration the northern colonies were left in the full enjoyment of their coveted rights. In commerce, in the industry of private life, and especially in religion, the people of Massachusetts were as free as the people of England.

In the year 1652, it was decreed by the general court at Boston that the jurisdiction of the province extended as far north as three miles above the most northerly waters of the river Merrimac. This declaration,

which was in strict accordance with the charter of the colony, was made for the purpose of annexing Maine to Massachusetts. By this measure the territory of the latter State was extended to Casco Bay. Settlements had been made on the Piscataqua as early as 1626, but had not flourished. Thirteen years later a royal charter was issued to Sir Ferdinand Gorges, a member of the Council of Plymouth, who became proprietor of the province. His cousin, Thomas Gorges, was made deputy-governor. A high-sounding constitution, big enough for an empire, was drawn up, and the little village of Gorgeana, afterward York, became the capital of the kingdom. Meanwhile, in 1630, the Plymouth Council had granted to another corporation sixteen hundred square miles of the territory around Casco Bay, and this claim had been purchased by Rigby, a republican member of Parliament. Between his deputies and those of Gorges violent disputes arose. The villagers of Maine, sympathizing with neither party, and emulous of the growth and prosperity of the southern colonies, laid their grievances before the court at Boston, and the annexation of the province followed.

In July of 1656, the QUAKERS began to arrive at Boston. The first who came were Ann Austin and Mary Fisher. The introduction of the plague would have occasioned less alarm. The two women were caught and searched for marks of witchcraft, their trunks were broken open, their books were burned by the hangman, and they themselves thrown into prison. After several weeks' confinement they were brought forth and banished from the colony. Before the end of the year eight others had been arrested and sent back to England. The delegates of the union were immediately convened, and a rigorous law was passed, excluding all Quakers from the country. Whipping, the loss of one ear and banishment were the penalties for the first offence; after a second conviction the other ear should be cut off; and should the criminal again return, his tongue should be bored through with a red-hot iron.

In 1657, Ann Burden, who had come from London to preach against persecution, was seized and beaten with twenty stripes. Others came, were whipped and exiled. As the law became more cruel and proscriptive, fresh victims rushed forward to brave its terrors. The assembly of the four colonies again convened, and advised the authorities of Massachusetts to pronounce the penalty of death against the fanatical disturbers of the public peace. When the resolutions embodying this advice was put before the assembly, to his everlasting honor, the younger Winthrop, delegate from Connecticut, voted No! Massachusetts accepted the views of the greater number, and the death-penalty was passed by a majority of one vote.

In September of 1659, four persons were arrested and brought to trial under this law. The prisoners were given the option of going into exile or of being hanged. Two of them (Mary Dyar and Nicholas Davis) chose banishment; but the other two (Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson) stood firm, denounced the wickedness of the court, and were sentenced to death. Mary Dyar, in whom the love of martyrdom had triumphed over fear, now returned, and was also condemned. On the 27th of October the three were led forth to execution. The men were hanged without mercy; and the woman, after the rope had been adjusted to her neck, was reprieved only to be banished. She was conveyed beyond the limits of the colony, but immediately returned and was executed. William Leddra was next seized, tried and sentenced. As in the case of the others, he was offered perpetual exile instead of death. He refused, and was hanged.

Before the trial of Leddra was concluded, Wenlock Christison, who had already been banished, rushed into the court-room and began to upbraid the judges for shedding the blood of the innocent. When put on his second trial, he spoke boldly in his own defence; but the jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and he was condemned to die. Others, eager for the honor of martyrdom, came forward in crowds, and the jails were filled with voluntary prisoners. But before the day arrived for Christison's execution, the public conscience was aroused; the law was repealed, the prisondoors were opened, and Christison, with twenty-seven companions, came forth free. The bloody reign of proscription had ended, but not until four innocent enthusiasts had given their lives for liberty of conscience.

But let a veil be drawn over this sorrowful event. The history of all times is full of scenes of violence and wrong. It could not be expected that an American colony, founded by exiles, pursued with malice and beset with dangers, should be wholly exempt from the shame of evil deeds. The Puritans established a religious rather than a civil commonwealth; whatever put the faith of the people in peril seemed to them more to be dreaded than pestilence or death. To ward off heresy, even by destroying the heretic, seemed only a natural self-defence. A nobler lesson has been learned in the light of better times.

The English Revolution had now run its course. Cromwell was

dead. The Commonwealth tottered and fell. Charles II. was restored to the throne of his ancestors. Tidings of the Restoration reached Boston on the 27th of July, 1660. In the same vessel that bore the news came Edward Whalley and William Goffe, two of the judges who had passed sentence of death on Charles I. It was now their turn to save their lives by flight. Governor Endicott received them with courtesy; the agents

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