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DEATH OF GORGES.

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civil government; an example which was followed a year or two afterwards by Dover and Portsmouth. In 1641, New Hampshire was brought under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, and permitted to send two representatives to the general court at Boston; thus ceasing to be a separate province in six years from the time of its first settlement.

At the suggestion of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, his friend Sir William Alexander had obtained in 1621, a patent for the territory east of the river St. Croix, and south of the St. Lawrence, under the name of Nova Scotia. This was followed in 1628, by the capture of Port Royal by the English; and in 1629, Quebec itself surrendered to a naval force commanded by Sir David Kirk. All New France was thus conquered by the English, one hundred and thirty years before its final subjugation by the army of General Wolfe; but it was immediately afterwards restored by treaty; the British government apparently not being aware of the value of the acquisition.

Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in common with other royalists, was unable to breast the storm of civil war which was become ruinous to all adherents to the crown. He was taken prisoner on the surrender of Bristol to the parliamentary forces, in 1645, and soon died, leaving his estate to his son John Gorges. On the return of the governor to England, in 1643, he was succeeded in his office by Mr. Vines. During his brief administration, Colonel Alexander Rigby revived a title to a large portion of the province, which had been granted by the council of Plymouth in 1630, under the name of the "Plough Patent." This patent claimed jurisdiction of the towns, as well as possession of the soil, of a tract forty miles square, located in the most populous part of the province. Mr. George Cleaves, who had long resided in the province, was sent over by Rigby as his agent and deputy governor. Cleaves summoned a court at Casco, in 1644, in the name of the "lord proprietor and president of the province of Lygonia," as the new proprietor denominated his patent; and though the inhabitants seem generally to have opposed the pretensions of Rigby, yet as Mr. Vines received no directions from Gorges

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as to his mode of proceeding, he yielded to the storm, resigned his commission, and removed with his family to the Island of Barbadoes. Two years after, the commissioners for foreign plantations in England recognised the claims of Rigby, and the government of Lygonia became regularly established.

But few towns and plantations were left to the jurisdiction of the former proprietary of Maine. These elected Edward Godfrey of Gorgeana their governor; and fearing they should fall into the hands of the puritan colonies, they petitioned parliament in 1650 to constitute them a distinct jurisdiction. Their application was unsuccessful, and their apprehensions were soon realized. The Massachusetts Bay Company laid claim to the greater part of Maine in 1652, under pretence that it was embraced within the limits of their patent. They accordingly proceeded to exercise jurisdiction over the towns, notwithstanding the manly protests and well-founded claims of Governor Godfrey: and Lygonia being soon after left in a defenceless state, by the death of Rigby, it also was brought within the Massachusetts charter, though some of its towns. did not submit until 1658.

The royal commissioners sent out soon after the Restoration to inspect affairs in New England, visited Maine in the summer of 1665, and declared the province to be under the protection and government of the king. They also designated several gentlemen to administer affairs until the royal pleasure should be known: but the commissioners had scarcely left New England, when the authorities of Massachusetts, aided by a military force, resumed their sway, and reduced the province to a reluctant submission. The legal proprietor, F. Gorges, grandson to, the original patentee, succeeded in obtaining a restitution of his title in 1677. This was effected by a formal adjudication at Whitehall, where the agents of the Massachusetts Bay Company appeared in compliance with a royal order. But the colony was unwilling to renounce her hold on the province, and in conformity with her instructions, her agents purchased the title from Gorges for the sum of twelve hundred and fifty pounds. After this transaction,

DUKE OF YORK'S PATENT.

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the Governor and Council of Massachusetts Bay took possession, under colour of a right derived from their former patent, and declaring themselves the lawful assigns of F. Gorges, they proceeded to organize a provincial jurisdiction accordingly.

The government established at this time, consisted of a president, deputy, and assistant, eight justices, and an elective general court. This form of government was retained until 1692, when by a new charter granted to Massachusetts, Maine was constituted a county, with the name of Yorkshire. This arrangement continued unchanged till 1760, when Cumberland and Lincoln counties were incorporated, and York reduced to nearly its present limits. After the revolution, Maine was styled a district, although its connexion with Massachusetts remained the same until 1820, when it was erected into a separate and independent state. About one-third of the present territory of Maine was included in the patent of Gorges. The other portions fell to Massachusetts in virtue of the charter of 1692.

Prior to that date, the ancient settlement of Pemaquid—now Bristol-was the only important post east of the Kennebec. The French province of Acadia, originally so indefinite in its asserted limits, was finally restricted on the west of the Pemaquid river. But the English resisted even this reduced demand of territory on the part of the French; and in 1664, Charles II. included in his patent to James, Duke of York, the country extending from Pemaquid to St. Croix river. Being thus united in its government with New York, it received the name of the county of Cornwall; a fortress was built at Pemaquid to defend the inhabitants; and at the instigation of the governors of New York, a considerable number of emigrants established themselves at different points along the coast. The ravages of the Indians prevented the growth of these settlements, and finally occasioned the dispersion of the inhabitants for a number of years. When James was dethroned as King of England, his title to these lands ceased. The charter granted by William in 1692, vested the territory in

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RESOURCES OF MAINE.

Massachusetts, as already stated. On the reduction of Canada and the termination of Indian hostilities, numerous settlers again took up these lands: and from that time to the present, notwithstanding the many perplexities produced by conflicting and unsettled claims to the right of the soil, this portion of Maine has steadily advanced in cultivation and improvement. The inexhaustible fisheries and forests of timber which first drew settlers to the shores of Maine and New Hampshire, covering their waters with fleets of small vessels, and enlivening their solitudes with the busy sounds of the saw-mills, have, in all periods of their history, proved great sources of wealth.

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HE progress of colonization in New England was now becoming rapid. While the scattered and ill-organized settlements of Maine and New Hampshire were springing into existence, the colony of Massachusetts was planted and raised into a compact, flourishing, and powerful state. The persecution of the puritans in England, which formed a part of the political system of Charles I. and his ecclesiastical adviser, Laud, had the effect

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