son died at Leyden; his heart was in America, where his memory will never die. The remainder of his people, and with them his wife and children, came over, so soon as means could be provided to defray the costs.

The frame of civil government in the old colony was of the utmost simplicity. A governor was chosen by general suffrage, whose power, always subordinate to the common will, was, at the desire of Bradford, in 1624, restricted by a council of five, and, in 1633, of seven, assistants. In the council, the governor had but a double vote. There could be no law or imposition without consent of the freemen. For more than eighteen years "the whole body of the male inhabitants" constituted the legislature; the state was governed, like a town, as a strict democracy; and the people were frequently convened to decide on executive not less than on judicial questions. At length, in 1639, after the increase of population, and its diffusion over a wider territory, each town sent its committee to a general court.

The men of Plymouth exercised self-government without the sanction of a royal charter, which it was ever impossible for them to obtain; it was, therefore, in themselves that their institutions found the guarantee for stability. They never hesitated to punish small offences; it was only after some scruples that they inflicted capital punishment. Their doubts being once removed, they exercised the same authority as the charter governments. Death was, by subsequent laws, made the penalty for several crimes, but was never inflicted except for murder. House-breaking and highway robbery were offences unknown in their courts, and too little apprehended to be made subjects of severe legislation.

"To enjoy religious liberty was the known end of the first comers' great adventure into this remote wilderness;" and they desired no increase but from the friends of their communion. Yet their residence in Holland had made them acquainted with various forms of Christianity; a wide experience had emancipated them from bigotry; and they were never betrayed into the excesses of religious persecution, though they sometimes permitted a disproportion between punishment and crime. In 1645, a majority of the house of delegates were in

favor of an act to "allow and maintain full and free toleration to all men that would preserve the civil peace and submit unto government; and there was no limitation or exception against Turk, Jew, Papist, Arian, Socinian, Nicolaitan, Familist, or any other;" but the governor refused to put the question, and so stifled the law.

It is as guides and pioneers that the fathers of the old colony merit gratitude. Through scenes of gloom and misery they showed the way to an asylum for those who would go to the wilderness for the liberty of conscience. Accustomed "in their native land to a plain country life and the innocent trade of husbandry," they set the example of colonizing New England with freeholders, and formed the mould for the civil and religious character of its institutions. They enjoyed, in anticipation, the fame which their successors would award to them. "Out of small beginnings," said Bradford, "great things have been produced; and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many, yea, in some sort to our whole nation." "Let it not be grievous to you" -such was the consolation offered from England to the pilgrims in the season of their greatest sufferings "let it not be grievous to you that you have been instruments to break the ice for others. The honor shall be yours to the world's end." "Yea, the memory of the adventurers to this plantation shall never die."

CHAPTER XIII.

NEW ENGLAND'S PLANTATION.

WHILE the king was engaged in the overthrow of the London company, its more loyal rival in the West of England sought new letters-patent with a great enlargement of their domain. The remonstrances of the Virginia corporation and the rights of English commerce could delay for two years, but not defeat, the measure that was pressed by the friends of the monarch. On the third of November, 1620, King James incorporated forty of his subjects-some of them members of his household and his government, the most wealthy and powerful of the English nobility-as "The Council established at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing New England, in America." The territory, which was conferred on them in absolute property, with unlimited powers of legislation and government, extended from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degree of north latitude, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The grant included the fisheries; and a revenue was considered certain from a duty to be imposed on all tonnage employed in them.

The patent placed emigrants to New England under the absolute authority of the corporation, and it was through grants from that plenary power, confirmed by the crown, that institutions the most favorable to colonial independence and the rights of mankind came into being. The French derided. the action of the British monarch in bestowing lands and privileges which their own sovereign seventeen years before had appropriated. The English nation was incensed at the largess of immense monopolies by the royal prerogative; and in April, 1621, Sir Edwin Sandys brought the grievance before

the house of commons. "Shall the English," he asked, "be debarred from the freedom of the fisheries-a privilege which the French and Dutch enjoy? It costs the kingdom nothing but labor, employs shipping, and furnishes the means of a lucrative commerce with Spain." "The fishermen hinder the plantations," replied Calvert; "they choke the harbors with their ballast, and waste the forests by improvident use. America is not annexed to the realm, nor within the jurisdiction of parliament. You have, therefore, no right to interfere." "We may make laws for Virginia," rejoined another member; "a bill passed by the commons and the lords, if it receive the king's assent, will control the patent." The charter, argued Sir Edward Coke, with ample reference to early statutes, was granted without regard to previously existing rights, and is therefore void by the established laws of England. But the parliament was dissolved before a bill could be perfected.

In 1622, five-and-thirty sail of vessels went to fish on the coasts of New England, and made good voyages. The monopolists appealed to King James, and he issued a proclamation, which forbade any to approach the northern coast of America, except with the leave of their company or of the privy council. In June, 1623, Francis West was despatched as admiral of New England, to exclude such fishermen as came without a license. But they refused to pay the tax which he imposed, and his ineffectual authority was soon resigned.

The company, alike prodigal of charters and tenacious of their monopoly, having, in December, 1622, given to Robert Gorges, the son of Sir Ferdinando, a patent for a tract extending ten miles on Massachusetts bay and thirty miles into the interior, appointed him lieutenant-general of New England, with power "to restrain interlopers." Morell, an Episcopal clergyman, was provided with a commission for the superintendence of ecclesiastical affairs. In 1623, under this patent the colony at Weymouth was revived, to meet once more with ill fortune. Morell, remaining in New England about a year, wrote a description of the country in very good Latin verse. The attempt of Robert Gorges at colonization ended in a short-lived dispute with Weston.

When, in 1624, parliament was again convened, the commons resolved that English fishermen should have fishing with all its incidents. "Your patent," thus Gorges was addressed by Coke from the speaker's chair, "contains many particulars contrary to the laws and privileges of the subject; it is a monopoly, and the ends of private gain are concealed under color of planting a colony." "Shall none," asked the veteran lawyer in debate, "shall none visit the sea-coast for fishing? This is to make a monopoly upon the seas, which wont to be free. If you alone are to pack and dry fish, you attempt a monopoly of the wind and the sun." It was in vain for Sir George Calvert to resist; the bill for free fishing was adopted, but it never received the royal assent.

The determined opposition of the house, though it could not move the king to overthrow the corporation, paralyzed its enterprise; and the cottages, which, within a few years, rose along the coast from Cape Cod to the bay of Fundy, were the results of private adventure.

Gorges, the most energetic member of the council of Plymouth, had not allowed repeated ill success to chill his confidence and decision; and he found in John Mason, "who had been governor of a plantation in Newfoundland, a man of action," like himself. It was not difficult for Mason, who had been elected an associate and secretary of the council, to obtain, in March, 1621, a grant of the lands between Salem river and the farthest head of the Merrimack; but he did no more with it than name it Mariana. In August, 1622, Gorges and Mason took a patent for Laconia, the country between the sea, the St. Lawrence, the Merrimack, and the Kennebec; a company of English merchants was formed, and under its auspices, in 1623, permanent plantations were established on the banks of the Piscataqua. Portsmouth and Dover are among the oldest towns in New England. In the same year an attempt was made by Christopher Lovett to colonize the county and city of York, for which, at a later day, collections were ordered to be taken up in all the churches of England.

When the country on Massachusetts bay was granted to a company, of which the zeal and success were soon to overshadow all the efforts of proprietaries and merchants, Mason

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