if our patent should be now taken from us, we should be looked at as runagates and outlaws, and shall be enforced either to remove to some other place, or to return to our native country again, either of which will put us to insuperable extremities; and these evils (among others) will necessarily follow: "1. Many thousand souls will be exposed to ruin, being laid open to the injuries of all men. "2. If we be forced to desert the place, the rest of the plantations about us (being too weak to subsist alone) will for the most part dissolve and go along with us, and then will this whole country fall into the hands of French or Dutch, who would speedily embrace such an opportunity. "3. If we should lose all our labor and cost, and be deprived of those liberties which his Majesty hath granted us, and nothing laid to our charge, nor any failing to be found in us in point of allegiance, (which all our countrymen do take notice of, and do justify our faithfulness in this behalf,) it will discourage all men hereafter from the like undertakings, upon confidence of his Majesty's royal grant. "4. Lastly, if our patent be taken from us, (whereby we suppose we may claim interest in his Majesty's favor and protection,) the common people here will conceive that his Majesty hath cast them off, and that hereby they are freed from their allegiance and subjection, and thereupon will be ready to confederate themselves under a new government, for their necessary safety and subsistence, which will be of dangerous example unto other plantations, and perilous to ourselves of incurring his Majesty's displeasure, which we would by all means avoid." 1 1 Hubbard, History, 269, 270. Hubbard, from whom Hazard copied, (I. 435, 436,) printed this paper from the original in the Massachusetts archives, where it is still preserved. The scarcely covert threats contained in it were suited to have effect, not only on the temper of the imperilled government Here, after a little more empty threatening from the Commissioners,' the business slept for the present. There was more serious matter for concern nearer home. The Scots were in arms. Hutchinson thought that, if the settlers in Massachusetts had now been pushed to extremity, "it is pretty certain the body of the people would have left the country," either betaking themselves to the Dutch on Hudson's River, or seeking some unoccupied spot out of the reach of any European power.2 But a combination with the Dutch, while it would have secured their liberty of worship, might not even have involved a necessity for their change of residence. As things stood, the great maritime power of the United Provinces, had it been engaged to come in aid of what they could do for themselves, might fairly be supposed competent to protect them in their Massachusetts homes. at home, but on further machinations of Gorges, who, however some of his interests might clash with those of the chief adjacent colony, could not but contemplate the probable contingencies which might make him desire its protection for his domain against his French neighbors on the other border. See Thomas Gorges's letter in Hutchinson's Collection, &c., 114. 1 "The Governor [May 6, 1639] received letters from Mr. Cradock, and in them another order from the lords commissioners, to this effect: That, whereas they had received our petition upon their former order, etc., by which they perceived that we were taken with some jealousies and fears of their intentions, etc., they did accept of our answer, and did now declare their intentions to be only to regulate all plantations to be subordinate to the said Commission; and that they meant to continue our liberties, etc., and therefore did now again peremptorily require the Governor to send them our patent by the first ship; and that in the mean 1 time they did give us, by that order, full power to go on in the government of the people until we had a new patent sent us; and, withal, they added threats of further course to be taken with us, if we failed. This order being imparted to the next General Court, some advised to return answer to it. Others thought fitter to make no answer at all, because, being sent in a private letter, and not delivered by a certain messenger, as the former order was, they could not proceed upon it, because they could not have any proof that it was delivered to the Governor; and order was taken, that Mr. Cradock's agent, who delivered the letter to the agent, etc., should, in his letters to his master, make no mention of the letters he delivered to the Governor, seeing his master had not laid any charge upon him to that end." (Winthrop, I. 298, 299.) 2 History, I. 86, 87. "If the earth will not help the woman, let her go into another wilderness." Such was the language of the times, borrowed from Rev. xii. 6, 14, 16. CHAPTER XIV. Ir was while events were ripening for the overthrow of the English throne and church, that the ten years had passed since the arrival of Winthrop's company in Massachusetts Bay. From the time of the dissolution of his. third Parliament, King Charles had ruled with absolute Despotism of Charles the First. authority. After reducing his expenses by a sudden and inglorious peace with both France and Spain, still he wanted money, which he proceeded to raise by illegal impositions. Duties on imported merchandise were exacted, in contempt of the denial of a Parliamentary grant; and customs were levied, unknown to former practice. Compositions with Papists for breaches of the laws became a permanent resource of the exchequer. Titles to crown lands anciently alienated by the crown were scrutinized, and, on pretence of some defect, fines were extorted from the possessors. A law, long obsolete, had required landholders to the amount of twenty pounds' yearly rent to receive knighthood when summoned for that purpose; Charles so far revived it as to oblige all persons with twice that rental to buy a release from the liability. The charter of London was declared forfeit, for some alleged irregularity of administration; and the city only saved its legal existence by the payment of a fine of seventy thousand pounds. In other quarters enormous mulcts were exacted by the Star-Chamber Court, on various pretexts. Monopolies were sold for the manufacture and vending of necessary articles.1 Custom 1 "Salt, starch, coals, iron, wine, pens, cards, dice, beavers, belts, bone lace, meat dressed in taverns (the vintners of London gave the king £6,000 house officers were empowered to search warehouses and dwellings. An early practice of requiring seaport towns to furnish vessels for the king's service-which was the same thing as for their own protection - had, for the convenience of both parties, led to a pecuniary com- Exaction of mutation by what was called Ship-money. The Ship-money. sovereign's right in respect to it had never received any stricter definition than was furnished by the obvious conditions of the case. Profiting by this vagueness, Charles assessed ship-money on the whole king.dom. By a fiction of state, the central counties were held to bound upon the Channel, and Derbyshire and Oxford were summoned to pay coin in the place of a despatch of squadrons from their docks. 1634. October. The spirit of Englishmen was not broken down to an acquiescence in the encroachments of prerogative. But where to find means of redress? There was no Parlia ment to provide new securities for the violated or threatened liberties of the subject. There were no honest tribunals to give him the benefit of those securities which were his by ancient law. Prostitute officials did thoroughly the work of an insolent court. The twelve judges endeavored to forestall public opinion by an extra-judicial for freedom from this horrible imposition), tobacco, wine-casks, game, brew ing and distilling, lamprons, weighing of hay and straw in London, gauging of red herrings, butter-casks, kelp and seaweed, linen cloth, rags, hops, but tons, hats, gut-string, spectacles, combs, tobacco-pipes, sedan chairs, and hack ney-coaches (now first invented), saltpetre, gunpowder, down to the privilege of gathering rags exclusively, -all these things were subject to monopolies, and all heavily taxed." (John Forster, Historical and Biographical Essays, I. 59.) "It is a nest of wasps, or swarm of vermin, which have overcrept the land, I mean the monopolers and pollers of the people. Like the frogs 1637. argument of their own in favor of the legality of shipmoney. Some men of fortune and consequence, among whom were Lord Say and Sele, William Vassall, and John Hampden, were resolved to bring the question to a trial. The case of Hampden, who was assessed twenty shillings on a small property of his in a parish of Buckinghamshire, chanced to stand first of the three on the docket. The Attorney-General and Solicitor-General argued for the crown; the Sergeants St. John and Holborne were of counsel for Hampden. Finch, the infamous Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and six. other judges, agreed in a judgment for the king. Brampston and Davenport, the heads respectively of the Courts of King's Bench and of Exchequer, gave a qualified opinion of the same tenor. The remaining three dissented, notwithstanding their discreditable committal of themselves before the trial. A decision, accompanied with all the solemnities, had been pronounced by the highest English tribunal. If it was necessarily good English law, then had the king of England the unlimited power of the purse, as well as of the sword. Archbishop 1€33. The abuses of ecclesiastical authority were not less exasperating and intolerable. William Laud, who, from the time of the sequestration of the indulgent Archbishop Abbot, had been virtually at the head of church affairs, was able, when, on the death of that prelate, he succeeded to the primacy, to pursue with Laud. increasing facility his arbitrary course. He was united in strict intimacy and harmonious policy with Thomas Wentworth, now Earl of Strafford and President of the Council of York, before which tribunal the northern counties were placed out of the protection of the courts in Westminster Hall; and the friends dedicated their joint forces to the ambition of the monarch and the subjugation of the realm. Laud's special province lay in the enforcement of severe laws of uni |