A School History of the United States. John Bach McMaster
permanently. But certain members of the party, when they heard this, became unruly, and declared that as they were not to land in Virginia, they were no longer bound by the contracts they had made in England regarding their emigration to Virginia. To put an end to this, a meeting was held, November 21, 1620, in the cabin of the Mayflower, and a compact was drawn up and signed.[1] It declared
1. That they were loyal subjects of the King.
2. That they had undertaken to found a colony in the northern parts of Virginia, and now bound themselves to form a "civil body politic."
3. That they would frame such just and equal laws, from time to time, as might be for the general good.
4. And to these laws they promised "all due submission and obedience."
[Footnote 1: The compact is in Poore's Charters and Constitutions, p. 931, and in Preston's Documents Illustrative of American History, pp. 29–31. Read, by all means, Webster's Plymouth Oration.]
[Illustration: Plymouth Rock]
%34. The Founding of Plymouth%.—The selection of a site for their home was now necessary, and five weeks were passed in exploring the coast before Captain Standish with a boatload of men entered the harbor which John Smith had noted on his map and named Plymouth. On the sandy shore of that harbor, close to the water's edge, was a little granite bowlder, and on this, according to tradition, the Pilgrims stepped as they came ashore, December 21, 1620. To this harbor the Mayflower was brought, and the work of founding Plymouth was begun. The winter was a dreadful one, and before spring fifty-one of the colonists had died.[1] But the Pilgrims stood fast, and in 1621 obtained a grant of land[2] from the Council for New England, which had just succeeded the Plymouth Company, under a charter giving it control between latitudes 40° and 48°, from sea to sea.[3] It was from the same Council that for fifteen years to come all other settlers in New England obtained their rights to the soil.
[Footnote 1: In the trying times which followed, William Bradford was chosen governor and many times reëlected. He wrote the so-called "Log of the Mayflower,"—really a manuscript History of the Plymouth Plantation from 1602 to 1647—a fragment of which is reproduced on the opposite page.]
[Footnote 2: This grant had no boundary. Each settler might have 100 acres. Fifteen hundred acres were set aside for public buildings.]
[Footnote 3: Fiske's Beginnings of New England, pp. 80–87; Palfrey's New England, Vol. I, pp. 176–232; Thatcher's History of the Town of Plymouth.]
[Illustration: Fragment of History of the Plymouth Plantation.]
%35. A Puritan Colony proposed.%—Among those who obtained such rights was a company of Dorchester merchants who planted a town on Cape Ann. The enterprise failed, and the colonists went off and settled at a place they called Naumkeag. But there was one man in Dorchester who was not discouraged by failure. He was John White, a Puritan rector. What had been done by the Separatists in a small way might be done, it seemed to White, on a great scale by an association of wealthy and influential Puritans. The matter was discussed by them in London, and in 1628 an association was formed, and a tract of land was bought from the Council for New England.
%36. The "Sea to Sea" Grant%.—Concerning the interior of our continent absolutely nothing was known. Nobody supposed it was more than half as wide as it really is. The grant to the association, therefore, stretched from three miles north of the Merrimac River to three miles south of the Charles River, along these rivers to their sources, and then westward across the continent from sea to sea.[1]
[Footnote 1: You will notice that when this grant was made in 1628 the Dutch had discovered the Hudson, and had begun to settle Albany. To this region (the Hudson and Mohawk valleys) the English had no just claim.]
As soon as the grant was obtained, John Endicott came out with a company of sixty persons, and took up his abode at Naumkeag, which, being an Indian and therefore a pagan name, he changed to Salem, the Hebrew word for "peace."
%37. The Massachusetts Charter, 1629%.—The next step was to obtain the right of self-government, which was secured by a royal charter creating a corporation known as the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England. Over the affairs of the company were to preside a governor, deputy governor, and a council of eighteen to be elected annually by the members of the company.[2]
[Footnote 2: The charter is printed in Poore's Charters and Constitutions, pp. 932–942, and in Preston's Documents, pp. 36–61.]
Six ships were now fitted out, and in them 406 men, women, and children, with 140 head of cattle, set sail for Massachusetts. They reached Salem in safety and made it the largest colony in New England.
%38. Why the Puritans came to New England.%—It was in 1625 that Charles I. ascended the throne of England. Under him the quarrel with the Puritans grew worse each year. He violated his promises, he collected illegal taxes, he quartered troops on the people, he threw those into prison who would not contribute to his forced loans, or pressed them into the army or the navy. His Archbishop Laud persecuted the Puritans with shameful cruelty.
Little wonder then that in 1629 twelve leading Puritans met in consultation and agreed to head a great migration to the New World, provided the charter and the government of the Massachusetts Bay Company were both removed to New England. This was agreed to, and in April, 1630, John Winthrop sailed with nearly one thousand Puritans for Salem. From Salem he moved to Charlestown, and later in the year (1630) to a little three-hilled peninsula, which the English called Tri-mountain or Tremont. There a town was founded and called Boston.
The departure of Winthrop was the signal, and before the year 1630 ended, seventeen ships, bringing fifteen hundred Puritans, reached Massachusetts. The newcomers settled Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Watertown, and Newtown (now Cambridge). New England was planted.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read Fiske's Beginnings of New England, pp. 75–105. Eggleston's Beginners of a Nation, pp. 188–219.]
%39. New Hampshire and Maine.%—When it became apparent that the Plymouth colony was permanently settled, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, whose interest in New England had never lagged, together with John Mason obtained (1622) from the Council for New England a grant of Laconia, as they called the territory between the Merrimac and the Kennebec rivers, and from the Atlantic "to the great river of Canada." Seven years later (1629) they divided their property. Mason, taking the territory between the Merrimac and Piscataqua rivers, called it New Hampshire because he was Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire in England. Gorges took the region between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec, and called it Maine. After the death of Mason (1635) his colony was neglected and from 1641 to 1679 was annexed to Massachusetts. The King separated them in 1679, joined them again in 1688, and finally parted them in 1691, making New Hampshire a royal colony.
Gorges took better care of his part and (in 1639) was given a charter with the title of Lord Proprietor of the Province or County of Maine, which extended, as before, from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec, and backward 120 miles from the ocean. But after his death the province fell into neglect, and the towns were gradually absorbed by Massachusetts, which, in 1677, bought the claims of the heir of Gorges for £1250 and governed Maine as lord proprietor under the Gorges charter.
%40. Church and State in Massachusetts.%—Down to the moment of their arrival in America the Puritans had not been Separatists. They were still members of the Church of England who desired to see her form of worship purified. But the party under Endicott had no sooner reached Salem than they seceded, and the first Congregational Church in New England was founded.
Some in Salem were not prepared for so radical a step, and attempted to establish a church on the episcopal model; but Endicott promptly sent two of the leaders back to England. Thus were established two facts: 1. The separation or secession of the Colonial Church from that of England. 2. That the episcopal form of worship would not be tolerated in the colony.
In 1631 another step was taken which united church and state, for it was then ordered that "no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic,