THE COMMISSION FOR PLANTATIONS 177 out the realm became Archbishop of Canterbury, the matter grew more serious. His repressive measures at once accelerated the flow of Puritan emigration and he began to see in New England a dangerous centre of disaffection whither the malcontents in Church and State) were fleeing to plot treason and heresy. A fresh enquiry into the provisions of the Massachusetts charter was begun, certain ships laden with emigrants were arrested for a time, and in April 1634 a permanent board of "Lords Commissioners for Plantations in General" was erected by patent,1 with wider executive, legislative and judicial powers than had been entrusted to any body since the time of Henry VIII. Actually the membership was confined to Lords of the Privy Council of which the commission was nothing but a standing committee entrusted with the powers of the Council in a particular field. A body of sub-commissioners composed of men of lesser rank but of special experience was appointed later by the commission to prepare matters for its decision or that of the Privy Council.3 The opponents of the Government saw in the commission a dangerous instrument of the prerogative and a new threat to their ancient liberties, and many men of high position and influence like Warwick began seriously to make plans to abandon England for good. The revolutionary temper was clearly rising, though eight years more were to elapse before the outburst. But Massachusetts, which saw in the commission an instrument directed against itself, had no reluctance to proceed upon a course that was one of rebellion in all but name. To the demands of the commission to produce the Company's charter for examination the governor and Assembly returned only evasive answers, and it became evident that they did not intend to obey. A suit of quo warranto was therefore begun in the King's Bench. But the whole machinery of the Company having been re- x moved to New England where there was no means of enforcing judgment, judicial proceedings were futile. Only executive action could be of effect and the rapidly increasing domestic troubles made any such effort impossible. Meanwhile other steps were being taken by the Archbishop and the Privy Council which indicated the policy they intended to adopt if they could find the means. The Council for New England had been moribund for some years, and in 1634 it was resolved on the suggestion of Gorges and Captain John Mason to surrender its charter and to divide the territories allotted to it between the surviving members in the hope that some of them would enforce their shadowy rights at their own expense. The terms of the surrender pointed to the proceedings of the Massachusetts colonists as the cause of the failure of the Council's schemes and practically accused them of rebellion. "They made themselves a free 1 Rymer, Foedera, xx, 8–10. 2 Beer, Origins, pp. 313-14. * See Andrews, C. M., British Committees, etc., of Trade and Plantations, 1622-75, pp. 18-20. CHBEI 12 People...and framed unto themselves new conceits of Religion and forms of ecclesiastical and temporal Orders and Government, punishing divers that would not approve thereof...by banishing and the like." The King announced his intention of appointing Sir Ferdinando Gorges as Governor-General of New England and giving him full proprietary rights over one of its provinces for his support, while John Mason was appointed Vice-Admiral of New England with full martial authority in those seas and also beyond into the South Sea "where lie California and Nova Albion", an interesting reminder that Drake's annexations had not been forgotten. Mason died, however, before he could take up his commission and no successor was appointed. Gorges began to organise an armed expedition to establish his government, and if he could have secured proper support from the Crown, such as would have been forthcoming in normal times, there is little doubt that the American revolutionary war would have been anticipated by a hundred and forty years. That anyone of influence in Massachusetts intended to claim complete political independence from England is unlikely, for that would have meant laying the colony open to attack by other European Powers. The implications of the course of policy they were pursuing had not been fully realised, and it was possible for their apologists to deny sincerely that "under the colour of planting a Colony they intended to raise and erect a seminary of faction and separation "3, while others were writing thence that "they aimed at sovereignty and it was accounted perjury and treason in their general court to speak of appeals to the king". It was neither the first nor the last time that revolutionaries in intent have tried to make the best of both worlds. However, the colony was determined to resist any attempt to suppress its charter by force of arms, and the years 1635 and 1636 were filled with preparations for defence. Forts and blockhouses were erected and the train bands armed and drilled, but the looked-for expedition never arrived, for Gorges could get no help, and his own resources were too depleted for him to do anything effective. The English Government had its hands full with the beginning of the troubles with the Scots and could spare no help to suppress colonial rebels beyond the Atlantic. Distance from the centre of the Empire was clearly the colonists' best defence, and only a stronger and more highly organised power than the distracted Government of Charles I could have done anything to curb the rapidly hardening separatist spirit in America. With the outbreak of the Scottish war the power of the English Government to pay any attention to colonial affairs practically came to an end and England became wholly absorbed in the domestic 1 Recs. of Council for New England in Proceedings of Amer. Antiq. Soc. (1867), p. 124. 2 Dean and Tuttle, Life of John Mason, p. 347. 3 The Planters' Plea (Force's Tracts), pp. 14, 44. 4 Hutchinson, T., Hist. of Mass. 1, 87. THE COLONIES IN THE CIVIL WAR 179 struggles of her Puritan Revolution. In the history of the outer Empire the Civil War was as important a factor as it was in English history, but its action was wholly negative. For ten years or more each colony was practically isolated from outside interference and each continued its development in its own way. The only unifying influence was removed, and the factors working for differentiation had full play. Hence it is impossible to trace any connected story and we must confine ourselves to a few brief references to events that were contemporary but unrelated. The flow of English emigration continued with little check down to 1641, but with the beginning of civil war in 1642 it rapidly dried up owing to the impossibility of finding transport. The great exodus that had carried at least 80,000 Englishmen across the Atlantic was over, and no efflux of such magnitude in comparison with the population was to be seen again until the nineteenth century. When the Long Parliament seized executive power, it directed some attention to colonial projects, but its plans were of a kind that was out-of-date, being concerned mainly with the design of establishing a West India Association on the lines of the Dutch West India Company to organise attacks upon the Spanish colonies.1 Pym and others of the Providence Company were appointed to a parliamentary committee to examine the project, but they never reported. The interest of the incident lies in the link it affords with the Western Design of 1655.2 Neither King nor Commons could spare much thought for colonial affairs, but since the Parliamentarians held London, which did by far the greater part of the colonial trade, they had a certain control over the customs on imports and exports. Hence any action they took was mainly concerned with economic matters.3 4 In 1643 the Earl of Warwick was appointed Governor-in-Chief and Lord High Admiral of all the English colonies in America with a standing council endowed with considerable powers. But these powers were merely nominal, for it was impossible to enforce any orders of the council. Massachusetts flatly denied the legislative power of Parliament in the colony, for they maintained that "the laws of the parliament of England reach no further, nor do the king's writs under the great seal go any further. Our allegiance binds us not to the laws of England any longer than while we live in England".5 In the other colonies the English struggle between Royalists and Parliamentarians was duplicated, though the points at issue were concerned more with local disputes than with any broader questions. Centrifugal forces were, in fact, in full play and everyone sought his own immediate interests. In New England during this period of autonomy the most important event was the establishment of a confederation of the colonies 3 Beer, Origins, pp. 343-6 seqq. 5 Winthrop, II, 352. 1 Stock, Debs. 1, 122-3. for defence against the Indians, the Dutch and the French. By 1640 the population of New England had grown to about 18,000, of whom nearly 14,000 were in Massachusetts, and while the flow of immigration continued the prosperity of the colonies seemed to increase by leaps and bounds. But with the cessation of the stream the boom collapsed, business came to a standstill and men found it so hard to make a living that emigration to the West Indies began and soon assumed proportions that were alarming to the authorities. Each of the colonies during the boom had been expanding into the interior as fast as it could, but with the crash the dangers with which they were faced from their neighbours looked more menacing than the advantages to be derived from any increase of territory. Massachusetts had made repeated attempts to bring the smaller colonies under her control, but they had always withstood her, and when in 1643 she expressed her readiness to recognise their independence and to agree to Articles of a Confederation for common defence, in the council of which each colony was granted equal representation, they were willing to accept. "A firm and perpetual league of friendship and amity for offence and defence, mutual advice and succour" was established,1 and a board of commissioners was set up to consider matters of mutual interest and to determine all military questions, each colony supplying the forces required from it. The existence of any authority in England was completely ignored, and the "United Colonies of New England" arranged the confederation entirely between themselves by diplomatic negotiations like independent states. In Virginia the general tendency during the Civil War was to favour the royalist cause, but no effort was made to give active support to the King's forces. Advantage was taken of the downfall of external authority to free the colony from restrictive commercial regulations and to enter into active trading relations with the Dutch, who were beginning to supply negro slaves in considerable numbers. This remedied the scarcity of white indentured servants and had an important effect upon the plantation economy of the colony. The troubles in England drove abroad numbers of those who disliked the Puritan régime, and Virginia welcomed many emigrants of a much better social position than those who had come to her shores as indentured servants. But on the other hand the royalist government of the colony drove many Puritans away, and in the year 1649 more than a thousand persons left Virginia to settle in Maryland. The colony was, however, so firmly established that it could support these defections. The contrast between its condition during the Civil War and its earlier years is marked by the way in which it met a second Indian massacre. The disaster of 1622 had nearly proved fatal, but 1 Newton, A. P., Federal and Unified Constitutions, pp. 50-6. 2 Bruce, P. A., Economic Hist. of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century. SIR DAVID KIRKE IN NEWFOUNDLAND 181 in 1644 when the Indians rose again and slaughtered more than 300 persons in the frontier settlements, no serious check to Virginia's general prosperity resulted. The Indians were driven entirely out of the lower part of the colony, and thenceforward its development was unhampered by troubles with the savages except upon the frontier. In Maryland the troubles between the Puritans and the Roman Catholic proprietors led to two years of civil war in 1645 and 1646, but the struggle exercised little influence on affairs outside the colony. In Newfoundland the period was marked by the final disappearance of all those who in earlier years had attempted to establish colonies of permanent residents, by the increase of French interests in the island and its fisheries, and by the beginnings of a permanent settlement of Englishmen. We showed earlier how Lord Baltimore established himself at Ferryland in the Province of Avalon in 1628-9, but abandoned the island after a season's stay. In all probability a few isolated settlers remained behind, but they were quite unorganised, and it was not until ten years later that another attempt at systematic colonisation was undertaken. Sir David Kirke, it will be remembered,1 had been deprived of his conquest of Canada after the Treaty of St Germain-en-Laye in 1632. In 1638 James, Marquis of Hamilton, and others secured from the Crown a patent granting to them the whole island of Newfoundland, including the Province of Avalon, as "Lords Proprietors and Adventurers." This syndicate was organised by Kirke and he went out to the island with a company of settlers mostly from the west country to assume the government. He occupied Baltimore's deserted buildings and thence began to enforce order and exact licence dues from all fishermen landing on the coast. By 1640 Sir David had fallen out with the Lords Proprietors and they attempted to replace him as Governor, but he refused to budge, and for ten years he ruled the island as he thought fit, entirely disregarding any authority other than his own. Protests were made against his proceedings by the fishing merchants, but it was not until 1651 that any effective action could be taken, when Kirke was compelled to return to England to answer for his arbitrary actions before the Council of State. However, his settlers remained and it is certain that the residence of an English community in Newfoundland can be traced continuously from 1638 onwards and is to be associated with the work of the Kirke family. During the time when the sequence of regular fishing voyages from the English ports was interrupted by the Civil War, ships and merchants began to find bases for their operations in the New England ports and an active commerce sp ng up. Ships from Boston or Rhode Island began to carry flour and meat to St John's to sell to the Newfoundland fishermen and there to freight their vessels with fish and train oil 1 Vide supra, p. 155. |