The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume I Part 11

[Footnote 104: History of New England, Vol. I., p. 364.]

[Footnote 105: Mr. Neal gives the following account of certain Baptists--Clarke, Holmes and Crandall--who "were all apprehended upon the 20th July this year, (1651), at the house of one William Witters, of Lin. As they were worshipping G.o.d in their own way on a Lord's-day morning, the constable took them into custody. Next morning they were brought before the magistrate of the town, who sent them in custody to Boston, where they remained in prison a fortnight, when they were brought to trial, convicted and fined: John Clarke, twenty pounds or to be well whipped; John Crandall, five pounds or to be whipped; Obadiah Holmes, thirty pounds for several offences." Mr. Neal adds: "The prisoners agreed not to pay their fines but to abide the corporal punishment the Court had sentenced them to; but some of Mr. Clarke's friends paid the fine without his consent; and Crandall was released upon the promise to appear at the next Court; but Holmes received thirty lashes at the whipping-post. Several of his friends were spectators of his punishment; among the rest John Spear and John Hazell, who, as they were attending the prisoner back to prison, took him by the hand in the market-place, and, in the face of all the people, praised G.o.d for his courage and constancy; for which they were summoned before the General Court the next day, and were fined each of them forty shillings, or to be whipped. The prisoners refused to pay the money, but some of their friends paid it for them."

Mr. Neal adds the following just and impressive remarks: "_Thus the Government of New England, for the sake of uniformity in divine worship, broke in upon the natural rights of mankind, punishing men, not for disturbing the State, but for their different sentiments in religion_, as appears by the following Law:" [Then Mr. Neal quotes the law pa.s.sed against the Baptists seven years before, in 1644, and given on page 92.]

(Neal's History of New England, Vol. I., pp. 299, 300, 302, 303.)]

[Footnote 106: Hutchinson's Collection of State Papers, etc., pp. 401, 402.

Mr. Cotton wrote a long letter in reply to Sir R. Saltonstall, denying that he or Mr. Wilson had instigated the complaints against the Baptists, yet representing them as _profane_ because they did not attend the established worship, though they worshipped G.o.d in their own way.

Cotton, a.s.suming that the Baptist worship was no worship, and that the only lawful worship was the Congregational, proceeds to defend compulsory attendance at the established worship upon the ground of preventing Sabbath profaneness (which was a perversion of Sir R.

Saltonstall's letter), the same as compulsory attendance at the established worship was justified in the time of Elizabeth and James the First, and against which the whole army of Puritan writers had contended. Some of Cotton's words were as follows: "But (you say) it doth make men hypocrites to compel men to conforme the outward men for fear of punishment. If it did so, yet better be hypocrites than profane persons. Hypocrites give G.o.d part of his due, the outward man; but the profane person giveth G.o.d neither the outward or inward man."--"If the magistrate connive at his absenting himself from the Sabbath duties, the sin will be greater in the magistrate than can be the other's coming."

Mr. Hutchinson, referring to Sir R. Saltonstall's letter, says:--"It discovers a good deal of that catholic spirit which too many of our first settlers were dest.i.tute of, and confirms what I have said of Mr.

Dudley's zeal in the first volume of the Ma.s.sachusetts History."]

[Footnote 107: History of the United States, Vol. I., p. 484.

"I believe," says Mr. Bancroft, "that the elder Winthrop had relented before his death, and, it is said, became weary of banishing heretics.

The soul of the younger Winthrop was incapable of harbouring a thought of intolerant cruelty; but the rugged Dudley was not mellowed by old age." Cotton affirmed: "Better tolerate hypocrites and tares than thorns and briers." "Religion," said Norton, from the pulpit, "admits of no eccentric motions." (_Ib._, pp. 486, 487.)]

[Footnote 108: Burke, Vol. II., Second London Edition, 1758, pp.

148-152.]

[Footnote 109: "In October, 1650, the Commons pa.s.sed a memorable ordinance, prohibiting trade with Barbadoes, Virginia, Antigua, and the Bermudas, because they had adhered to the fortunes of their late Sovereign. It declared such persons 'notorious robbers and traitors;' it forbade every one to confederate with them; it prohibited all foreign vessels from sailing thither, and it empowered the Council of State to compel all opponents to obey the authority of Parliament. Berkley's defence of Virginia against the fortunate invaders gained him the approbation of his prince and the applause of his countrymen. When he could no longer fight, he delivered up the government, upon such favourable terms as the English Commissioners were willing to grant. He retired to a private station, to wait with patience for favourable events. Virginia changed the various rulers which the revolutions of the age imposed on England, with the reluctance that acknowledged usurpation generally incites. But with the distractions that succeeded the death of Cromwell, she seized the opportunity to free herself from the dominion of her hated masters by recalling Berkley from his obscurity, and proclaiming the exiled king; and she by this means acquired the unrivalled honour of being the last dominion of the State which submitted to that unjust exercise of government, and the first which overturned it."--Chalmers' History of the Revolt of the American Colonies, Vol. I., pp. 74, 75 (Boston Collection).]

[Footnote 110: It was proved on Hugh Peters' trial, twenty years afterwards, that he had said his work, out of New England, was, "to promote the interest of the Reformation, _by stirring up the war and driving it on_." He was Cromwell's favourite chaplain, and preached before the Court that tried King Charles I., urging the condemnation and execution of the King.]

[Footnote 111: Hutchinson's History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Vol. I., Appendix viii., pp. 517, 518.

"The 'other English Colonies' with which Ma.s.sachusetts, by her attachment to the new Government, had been brought into unfriendly relations, were 'Barbadoes, Virginia, Bermudas, and Antigua.' Their persistent loyalty had been punished by an ordinance of Parliament forbidding Englishmen to trade with them--a measure which the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts seconded by a similar prohibition addressed to masters of vessels belonging to that jurisdiction. The rule was to remain in force 'until the compliance of the aforesaid places with the Commonwealth of England, or the further order of this Court;' and the penalty of disobedience was to be a confiscation of ship and cargo. In respect to Virginia, it may be presumed that this step was not the less willingly taken, on account of a grudge of some years' standing. At an early period of the civil war, that colony had banished nonconformist ministers who had gone thither from Ma.s.sachusetts [1643]; and the offence had been repeated five years afterwards."--Palfrey's History of New England, Vol. II., pp. 402, 403.

But Mr. Palfrey omits to remark that the Act of the Virginia Legislature, in forbidding the Congregational Ministers of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay from propagating their system in Virginia, was but a _retaliation_ upon the Government of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, which had not only forbidden Episcopal worship, but denied citizenship to Episcopalians. The Virginia Legislature, while it established the Episcopal Church, had never, like the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, disqualified all except the members of one Church from either holding office or exercising the elective franchise. The Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Government, like that of the Papacy, would tolerate only their own form of worship; would allow no Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Baptist worship within their jurisdiction; yet complain of and resent it as unjust and persecuting when they are not permitted to propagate their system in other colonies or countries.]

[Footnote 112: Hutchinson's History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Vol. I., Appendix ix., p. 522.

To these extraordinary addresses may be added a letter from the Rev.

John Cotton, a chief Congregational minister in Boston, to "Lord General Cromwell," dated Boston, N.E., May 5th, 1651.

There are three things in this letter to be specially noticed.

The _first_ is, the terms in which Cromwell is addressed and complimented.

The _second_ is, the indication here given of the manner in which the Scotch prisoners taken at the battle of Dunbar (while fighting in their own country and for their King) were disposed of by Cromwell, and with what complacency Mr. Cotton speaks of the slavery into which they were sold not being "perpetual servitude," but limited to "6 or 7, or 8 years."

The _third_ thing noteworthy in this letter, in which Mr. Cotton compliments Cromwell for having cashiered from the army every one but his own partizans, thus placing the army beneath his feet, to support his absolutism in the State, having extinguished the Parliament itself, and with it every form of liberty dear to the hearts of all true Englishmen.

The chief pa.s.sages of Mr. Cotton's letter are as follows:

"Right Honourable,--For so I must acknowledge you, not only for the eminency of place and command to which the G.o.d of power and honour hath called you; but also for that the Lord hath set you forth as a vessell of honour to his name, in working many and great deliverances for his people, and for his truth, by you; and yet helping you to reserve all the honour to him, who is the G.o.d of salvation and the Lord of hosts, mighty in battell."

"The Scots, whom G.o.d delivered into your hand at Dunbarre, and whereof sundry were sent hither, we have been desirous (as we could) to make their yoke easy. Such as were sick of the scurvy or other diseases have not wanted physick or chyrurgery. They have not been sold for slaves to perpetual servitude, but for 6 or 7, or 8 years, as we do our owne: and he that bought the most of them (I heare) buildeth houses for them, for every 4 an house, layeth some acres of ground thereto, which he giveth them as their owne, requiring three dayes in the weeke to worke for him (by turnes), and 4 dayes for themselves, and promiseth, as soon as they can repay him the money he layed out for them, he will set them at liberty."

"As for the aspersion of factious men, I hear, by Mr. Desborough's letter [Cromwell's brother-in-law], last night, that you have well vindicated yourselfe therefrom _by cashiering sundry corrupt spirits_ out of the army. And truly, Sir, better a few and faithfull, than many and unsound. The army on Christ's side (which he maketh victorious) are called chosen and faithfull, Rev. 17. 14--a verse worthy your Lordship's frequent and deepe meditation. Go on, therefore (good Sir), to overcome yourselfe (Prov. 16. 32), to overcome your army (Deut. 29. 9, with v.

14), and to vindicate your orthodox integrity to the world."

(Hutchinson's Collection of Original Papers relative to the History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, pp. 233-235.)]

[Footnote 113: In view of the doc.u.ments which I have quoted, it seems extraordinary to see Mr. Hutchinson, usually so accurate, so far influenced by his personal prejudices as to say that the government of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony "prudently acknowledged subjection to Parliament, and afterwards to Cromwell, _so far as was necessary to keep upon terms, and avoid exception, and no farther_. The addresses to the Parliament and Cromwell show this to have been the case."--History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Vol. I., p. 209.

The addresses to Parliament and to Cromwell prove the very reverse--prove that the rulers of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony avowedly identified themselves with the Parliament and afterwards with Cromwell, when he overthrew the Parliament, and even when he manipulated the army to his purpose of absolutism.]

CHAPTER V.

GOVERNMENT OF Ma.s.sACHUSETTS BAY AND OTHER COLONIES, DURING TWENTY YEARS, UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND.

The restoration of Charles the Second to the throne of his ancestors was received in the several American colonies with very different feelings; the loyal colonies, from the Bermudas to Plymouth, hailed and proclaimed the restored King without hesitation; Virginia proclaimed him before he was proclaimed in England;[114] the rulers of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony alone stood in suspense; hesitated, refused to proclaim him for a year, until ordered to do so. When it was ascertained that the restoration of the King, Lords, and Commons had been enthusiastically ratified by the people of England, and was firmly established, the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay adopted a most loyal address to the King, and another to the two Houses of Parliament, notwithstanding the same Court had shortly before lauded the power which had abolished King, Lords, and Commons. The Court also thought it needful to give practical proof of the sincerity of their new-born loyalty to the monarchical government by condemning a book published ten years before, and which had been until now in high repute among them, written by the Rev. John Eliot, the famous apostle to the Indians. This book was ent.i.tled "The Christian Commonwealth," and argued that a purely republican government was the only Christian government, and that all the monarchical governments of Europe, especially that of England, was anti-Christian.

It appears that this book had been adduced by the complainants in England against the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Government as a proof of their hostility to the system of government now restored in England. To purge themselves from this charge, the Governor and Council of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, March 18, 1661, took this book into consideration, and declared "they find it, on perusal, full of seditious principles and notions relative to all established governments in the Christian world, especially against the government established in their native country."

Upon consultation with the Elders, their censure was deferred until the General Court met, "that Mr. Eliot might have the opportunity in the meantime of public recantation." At the next sessions, in May, Mr. Eliot gave into the Court the following acknowledgment under his hand:

"Understanding by an Act of the honoured Council, that there is offence taken at a book published in England by others, the copy whereof was sent over by myself about nine or ten years since, and that the further consideration thereof is commended to this honoured Court now sitting in Boston: Upon perusal thereof, I do judge myself to have offended, and in way of satisfaction not only to the authority of this jurisdiction, but also to any others that shall take notice thereof, I do hereby acknowledge to this General Court, that such expressions as do too manifestly scandalize the Government of England, by King, Lords and Commons, as anti-christian, and justify the late innovators, I do sincerely bear testimony against, and acknowledge it to be not only a lawful but eminent form of government.

"2nd. All forms of civil government, deduced from Scripture, I acknowledge to be of G.o.d, and to be subscribed to for conscience sake; and whatsoever is in the whole epistle or book inconsistent herewith, I do at once and most cordially disown.

"JOHN ELIOT."[115]

It must have been painful and humiliating to John Eliot to be brought to account for and compelled to recant the sentiments of a book which had been in circulation eight or nine years, and much applauded by those who now arraigned and made a scapegoat of him, to avert from themselves the consequence and suspicion of sentiments which they had held and avowed as strongly as Eliot himself.

It has been said that the Government of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay had desisted from acknowledging and addressing Charles the Second as King, until they found that their silence endangered their interests. Mr. Holmes, in his Annals, speaking under the date of May, 1661 (a year after Charles had entered London as King), says: "Charles II., had not yet been proclaimed by the colony. The Governor (Endicot), on receiving intelligence of the transactions that were taking place in England to the prejudice of the colony, judged it inexpedient longer to delay that solemnity. Calling the Court together, a form of proclamation was agreed to, and Charles was acknowledged to be their sovereign Lord, and proclaimed to be the lawful King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, and all other territories thereto belonging." An address to the King was agreed to, and ordered to be sent to England.[116]

In this remarkable address (given in a note) the reader will be struck with several things which appear hardly reconcilable with words of sincerity and truth.

First, the reason professed for delaying nearly a year to recognise and address the King after his restoration. Nearly thirty years before, they had threatened the King's Royal father with resistance, since which time they had greatly increased in wealth and population; but now they represent themselves as "poor exiles," and excuse themselves for not acknowledging the King because of their Mephiboseth lameness of distance--as if they were more distant from England than the other American colonies. Their "lameness" and "ineptness" and "impotence"

plainly arose from disinclination alone. It is amusing to hear them speak of themselves as "exanimated outcasts," hoping to be animated by the breath of Royal favour. Their "script" was no doubt "the transcript of their loyal hearts" when they supplicated the continuance of the Royal Charter, the first intentions and essential provisions of which they had violated so many years.

Secondly. But what is most suspicious in this address is their denial of having taken any part in the civil war in England--professing that their lot had been the good old nonconformists',[117] "only to act a pa.s.sive _part_ throughout these late vicissitudes," and ascribed to the favour of G.o.d their "exemption from the temptations of _either party_." Now, just ten years before, in their address to the Long Parliament and to Cromwell, they said:

"And for our carriage and demeanour to the honourable Parliament for these ten years, since the first beginning of your differences with the late King, and the war that after ensued, we have constantly adhered to you, notwithstanding ourselves in your weakest condition and doubtfullest times, but by our fasting and prayers for your good success, and our thanksgiving after the same was attained, in days of solemnity set apart for that purpose, as also by our sending over useful men (others also going voluntarily from us to help you) who have been of good use and have done good acceptable service to the army, declaring to the world hereby that such was the duty and love we bear unto the Parliament that we were ready to rise and fall with them: for which we suffered the hatred and threats of other English colonies now in rebellion against you," etc.[118]

Whether this address to Parliament (a copy of it being enclosed with an address to Cromwell) had ever at that time been made public, or whether King Charles the Second had then seen it, does not appear; but it is not easy to conceive statements and words more opposite than those addressed by the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay to the Parliament in 1651, and to the King, Charles the Second, in 1661.

On the contrasts of acts themselves, the reader will make his own remarks and inferences. The King received and answered their address very graciously.[119] They professed to receive it gratefully; but their consciousness of past unfaithfulness and transgressions, and their jealous suspicions, apprehended evil from the general terms of the King's reply, his reference to his Royal predecessors and religious liberty, which above all things they most dreaded, desiring religious liberty for themselves alone, but not for any Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, or Quaker. They seem, however, to have been surprised at the kindness of the King's answer, considering their former conduct towards him and his Royal father, and towards the colonies that loyally adhered to their King; and professed to have been excited to an ecstasy of inexpressible delight and grat.i.tude at the gracious words of the best of kings.[120] Their address presented a curious mixture of professed self-abas.e.m.e.nt, weakness, isolation, and affliction, with fulsome adulation not surpa.s.sed by anything that could have been indited by the most devout loyalist. But this honeymoon of adulation to the restored King was not of long duration; the order of the King, September 8, 1661, to cease persecuting the Quakers, was received and submitted to with remonstrance; and obedience to it was refused as far as sending the accused Quakers to England for trial, as that would bring the Government of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay before the English tribunals.[121]

But pet.i.tions and representations poured in upon the King and Council from Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, etc., from Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, and their friends in England, complaining that they were denied liberty of worship, the ordinance of Baptism and the Lord's Supper to their families and themselves, that they were deprived of even the elective franchise because of their not being members of the Congregational Church, and praying for the redress of their grievances.[122]

The leaders of the colony had, however, warm and influential advocates in the Council of the King: the Earl of Manchester, formerly commander of the Parliamentary army against Charles the First, until supplanted by Cromwell; Lord Say, a chief founder of Connecticut; and Mr. Morrice, Secretary--all Puritans.[123] Under these influences the King sent a letter to the colony, which had been avowedly at war in connection with Cromwell, against his royal father and himself (and by which they had justly forfeited the Charter, apart from other violations of it), pardoning the past and a.s.suring them he would not cancel but restore and establish their Charter, provided they would fulfil certain conditions which were specified. They joyously accepted the pardon of the past, and the promised continuance of the Charter as if unconditional, without fulfilling the conditions of it, or even mentioning them; just as their fathers had claimed the power given them in the Royal Charter by Charles the First in 1628, to make laws and regulations for order and good government of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Plantation, concealing the Charter, claiming absolute power under it, and wholly ignoring the restrictive condition that such laws and regulations were not to be "contrary to the laws of England"--not only concealing the Charter, but not allowing their laws and regulations to be printed until after the fall of Charles the First, and resisting all orders for the production of their proceedings, and all Commissions of Inquiry to ascertain whether they had not made laws or regulations and performed acts "contrary to the laws of England." So now, a generation afterwards, they claimed and contended that Charles the Second had restored their Charter, as if done absolutely and unconditionally without their recognising one of the five conditions included in the proviso of the King's letter. Nothing could have been more kindly and generously conceived than the terms of the King's letter, and nothing could be more reasonable than the conditions contained in its proviso--conditions with which all the other British colonies of America readily complied, and which every province of the Dominion of Canada has a.s.sumed and acted upon as a duty and pleasure from the first establishment of their respective Governments. Of all the colonies of the British Empire for the last three centuries, that of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay is the only one that ever refused to acknowledge this allegiance to the Government from which it derived its existence and territory. The conditions which Charles the Second announced as the proviso of his consenting to renew and continue the Charter granted by his Royal father to the Company of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, were the following: