virtue of his discovery and possession, was soon made to feel the difference between republican and royal compulsion; and on quitting the community, remarked, in the bitterness of disappointed feeling, “that he had left England because he did not like the Lord's Bishops, but that he should now leave them, for he could not stand the Lord's Brethren."

The first emigrants who had a community of feeling both on political and religious matters, were resolved that their country should not merely be independent, but that its government should be freed from the interference of any new-comers who entertained different opinions from themselves. Dissent they knew they could deal with, but they knew also, that members of the Church of England, if allowed to obtain a footing among them, would, as a matter of course, acknowledge the king to be their sovereign, keep him informed of their usurpations, and be protected in their worship. They therefore at this early date, 18th of May, 1631, enacted in "order that the body of the commons might be preserved of good and honest men," that no person should be admitted to the freedom of the company, but such as were members of some of the churches established by law. So effectually did this check the introduction of Episcopalians, that during the whole continuance of the Charter, not a single congregation was collected in all Massachusetts.

This bold attempt at exclusive sovereignty, is thus lamented by Leechford: "None may now be a freeman of that company unless he be a Church member among them. None have voice in elections of governor, deputy, and assistants, none are to be magistrates, officers, or jurymen, grand or petit, but freemen. The ministers give their votes in all elections of magistrates. Now the most of the persons at New England are not admitted of their Church, and therefore are not freemen, and when they come to be tried there, be it for life or limb, name or estate, or whatsoever, they must be tried and judged too by those of the Church, who are in a sort their adversaries. How equal that hath been or may be, some by experience do know, others may judge." Another law was passed in the year 1767, having in view the same object: "That none should be received to inhabit within the jurisdiction, but such as should be allowed by some of the magistrates," and it was fully understood, that differing from the churches established in the country, was as great a disqualifi

cation as any political opinions. In defense of this order, it is advanced that the apostolic rule of rejecting such as brought not the true doctrine with them, was as applicable to the commonwealth as the Church, and that even the profane were less to be dreaded than the able advocates of erroneous tenets.*

Complaints they could not prevent, nor could the right to petition the Crown be openly impugned but by creating a new offense, that of accusing the brethren; no one could petition without being guilty of this crime. They therefore forbore to press a man to trial for memorializing the king in council, but they charged him with slandering the brethren, and held him liable to fine, imprisonment, or corporal punishment, or all three, for this petit treason. The intercourse with Europe was then so limited, and the distance so appalling, that public attention in England was not attracted for some time to this glaring usurpation. Morton, who had the temerity to erect his May-pole again on land not within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, was seized by the governor soon after his arrival, put into the stocks, and transported to his native country, where, we are very gravely informed by Prince, "he was not even rebuked." He was imprudent enough to return after his property had thus been invaded, and himself imprisoned and exiled, but was soon made sensible of his rashness. The governor, affecting to espouse the cause of an Indian, who disputed his right to the possession of a canoe, arrested him, burned down his establishment, and confiscated his estate, to pay for the expense of conveying him to England.

In London he was joined by two other victims of their cruelty and oppression-Sir Christopher Gardner and Philip Ratcliffe, who united with him in petitioning the king for redress. The former had been sent out by Sir Ferdinando Georges, as his agent, for the protection of a large territory he had purchased, adjoining that of the colony of Massachusetts. Whatever his religion may have been, one thing was certain, he was not a Puritan. As a stranger wholly unconnected with the colony, it was not a question for their consideration whether he was a Romanist or a Churchman; but they assumed the fact that he was a Papist, and ordered him to be arrested. Knowing their cruelty, and fearing the result, he preferred trusting to the hospi

* See Minot, Hist. Mass., vol. I. p. 29.

tality and protection of the savages, and arming himself, fled into the wilderness. The Indians, not without some difficulty, were bribed to give up to his unrelenting pursuers their confiding guest, and seizing an opportunity, when deprived of his sword and his gun, by the upsetting of his canoe, they attacked him while in the water, and with long poles beat him so severely over his hands and arms that he was compelled to relinquish the hold of his dagger (which was his only weapon) and surrender himself a prisoner. He was first taken to the jail in Plymouth, and then removed to that of Boston, from whence he was sent to England. In the mean time his papers were seized and examined, and such of them as were thought of service in developing the plans of his employer, Sir Ferdinando Georges, were retained.

The other complainant was Philip Ratcliffe. He had been a servant of Craddock, the first charter governor, and falling ill in his employ, on his recovery demanded wages from the agent of his master for the time he had been disabled. Disappointed in his expectations, he made some disparaging remarks about a people whose conduct so little comported with their professions. For this offense he was fined forty pounds, severely whipped, shorn of his ears, and banished forthwith out of the jurisdiction.

On the complaint of these people, an order in council was issued for an investigation, but the inquiry was deferred for the time, by the artful management of the principal associate, and by the secret assistance of some of the council, who were favorable to the cause of Dissenters. The committee of inquiry were informed that the company ought not to be punished for the conduct of some of its members; that if there were any causes of complaint, they could only be proved or explained by witnesses from the colony, but as they were at that time sending them some indispensable additional supplies (three Nonconformist ministers *) any suspension of the operations of the company would be attended with the most disastrous consequences.

Strange to say, this reasoning prevailed at the time to defeat the just claim of the petitioners for redress. The success of this deceptive conduct astonished every body, and none more than the governor and assistants themselves; for they were not only honorably acquitted, but actually applauded. They were as* John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and Samuel Stone.

sured by the king's government they might go cheerfully on with their present undertaking, and, "if things were carried as was pretended when the charter was granted, his majesty would maintain the liberties and privileges of the company." Morton appealed from the king in council to the public. He published at Amsterdam in 1637, a work entitled "New English Canaan,” in which, with more elegance of composition than was usual in those days, he ridiculed the Separatists with a severity that bespeaks the extent of the injury he had sustained at their hands. He is also said to have furnished Butler with the anecdote he has so inimitably told in Hudibras,* of the people of Plymouth having appeased the anger of the Indians for a murder of one of their people by hanging a bed-ridden innocent pauper instead of the real criminal, who, besides being a saint, had an additional claim to their clemency from being the only expert cordwainer in the place.

This story, which has been generally considered to have had no other foundation than the imagination of the poet, there is unhappily some reason to fear was but too true. Hubbard, himself a Puritan minister, living near the scene, and old enough† *Hudibras, Part ii. Canto 2.

"That sinners may supply the place
Of suffering saints, is a plain case,
Justice gives sentence many times,
On one man for another's crimes;
Our brethren of New England use
Choice malefactors to excuse,
And hang the guiltless in their stead,
Of whom the Churches have less need,
As lately 't happened: In a town
There lived a cobbler, and but one,
That out of doctrine could cut, use,

And mend men's lives as well as shoes.
This precious brother having slain,
In times of peace, an Indian,
The mighty Tottipottymoy
Sent to our Elders an envoy,

Who called upon the saints to render
Into his hands, or hang th' offender.
But they maturely having weighed
They had no more but him o' th' trade,
Resolv'd to spare him; yet, to do
The Indian, Hogam Mogam, too,
Impartial justice, in his stead did
Hang an old weaver that was bed-rid."

† He was born in 1621.

to have traced its authenticity, has not ventured in his history of New England to give it an unqualified contradiction. The inhabitants of Plymouth, he says, tell the story much otherwise. But if they were driven by necessity to do justice to content the Indians at that time, it is possible it might be executed, not on him that most deserved, but on him that can best be spared, or who was not like to live long if he had been let alone.*

It is almost incredible that with this sad experience of their persecuting spirit, Morton should have ventured among them again; but his perseverance was equal to their own, and they were amazed at beholding him there for the third time. He was instantly arrested, and a letter, written by him from London to a friend in the colony, intercepted by the governor (in which he calls him "King Winthrop," and inveighs against his "Amsterdam and fanatical ordinances") was produced against him. He was forthwith convicted of sedition, fined a hundred pounds, and banished again from the colony. To console him under his afflictions, he was told he had great reason to be thankful for the mercy of the court, as nothing but his great age had saved him from the whipping-post. Ratcliffe became a lunatic from the cruel treatment he received, and Sir Christopher Gardner very prudently gave up the contest.

This severe conduct was applauded by the ministers, by whom toleration was preached against as a sin in rulers, that would inevitably bring down the judgment of Heaven upon the land. "He that is mounted in the saddle," said one of their divines, "had need keep the reins straight, unless he intends to be thrown down and trodden under foot; they are the ministers of God for the good of mankind, and should not bear the sword in vain."‡

The power of the clergy was irresistible. At the first Court of Assistants, an Act was passed for building houses for them at the public expense, by which they became indissolubly connected with the State. By the operation of the two laws, I have already alluded to, namely, that no man could be qualified

*Fifth Vol. Mass. Hist. Coll. Second series, p. 77.

Hutchinson's History, vol. i. p. 75.

Notice was that year taken of an impudent affront one Captain Stone offered to Mr. Ludlow, one of the magistrates, calling him just-ass, for justice: it cost the offender one hundred pounds and banishment. Hist. Col., vol. v. Second series, p. 157,

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