An Historical Memoir of the Colony of New Plymouth

Front matter

MM OF MSII IPElLfBMHIS M ffMHKM'lM MftBKC . MS®. AN HISTORICAL MEMOIR OP THR COLONY OF NEW PLYMOUTH FROM THE FLIGHT OF THE PILGRIMS INTO HOLLAND IN THE YEAR 1608, TO THE UNION OF THAT COLONY WITH MASSACHUSETTS IN 1692. BY FRANCIS BAYLIES. WITH SOME CORRECTIONS, ADDITIONS, AND A COPIOUS INDEX, BY SAMUEL, 6. DRAKE. VOLUME I. CONTAINING PARTS ONE AND TWO. BOSTON: WIGGIN & LUNT, 13 SCHOOL STREET. 1866. CONTENTS. VOLUME I. Part I. — Preface . Pages i. to xii. From the time of Henry VIII. tothe end of twenty years from the Landing at Plymouth, . 1 to 321 Part II. — From 1641 to the commencement of the War with King Philip, ..... 1 to NOTE BY THE EDITOR. In order to equalize the size of the volumes as far as possible, all the Editor's additions have been formed into a Fifth Part, and placed at the end of the work.

Preface

. Some of the towns which were once included within the ancient colony of New Plymouth, contain at the present day a population more numerous than the whole population of that colony at any time during the first twenty years of its existence. — But no small commonwealth, not even a Greek republic, ever afforded to history in so short a period, so many materials alike interesting and instructive. In the earliest period, the colonists of Plymouth are to be considered rather as a voluntary association of independent individuals, than as subjects of the crown of England receiving protection, and yielding allegiance. Their history may properly be divided into four periods During the first they enacted laws, entered into treaties, made war and peace, and exercised all the powers of sovereignty almost escaping the notice of the English government. — They were alone in a wide wilderness, and they assumed sovereign power from necessity rather than choice : — this period is full of events: — difficulties with the natives; — domestic factions; — religious quarrels ; — repeated attempts to obtain a royal charter, and a continued effort to save themselves from the desolations of war, and the sufferings of famine.

PREFACE.

. IV At this period trifling incidents assume a character of importance far transcending their intrinsic interest, inasmuch as they serve to indicate that active and energetic spirit, that patient fortitude, that stern yet submissive religion, which taught the pilgrims to endure and to hope, and while they relied on divine protection, not to neglect the ' human means.' So fuli of dangers was this period, that it was only by the consummate prudence of Bradford, the matchless valor of Standish, and the incessant enterprise of Winslow, that the colony was saved from destruction. The submissive piety of Brewster, indeed, produced a moral effect as important in its consequences, as the active virtues of the others. These were the men who produced a greater revolution in the world than Columbus.

He in seeking for India discovered America. — They in pursuit of religious freedom established civil liberty, and meaning only to found a church, gave birth to a nation, and in settling a town commenced an empire. The colonists after surmounting the earliest difficulties, sup pressing the faction of Oldham and Lyford, and quieting the natives by exciting their fears, and winning their affections, under took, in 1636, to establish a criminal code; to define and limit the power and authority of their rulers, and to ascertain and declare the extent of dieir own rights and privileges by law. In 1639, a change was effected in the government which at the time scarcely attracted notice, it being considered as an affair of convenience only ; and yet it substituted a representative for an actual democracy, by vesting in the deputies of seven towns the power which had been previously exercised by the whole people : — the extension of the settlements virtually prevented

PREFACE.

. V them from exercising their legislative rights in person, and to distribute legislative power in fair and equal proportions it became necessary to delegate it. Having, under the patent of 1629, obtained (as they supposed) a title to the soil comprised within their limits, the colonists pro ceeded as their increasing population required, to occupy vacant lands, and to extinguish the Indian title to others by mutual agreement, and by the payment of an equivalent. The surrender of the patent (which had been taken in the name of Governor Bradford) to the whole company, and the issuing of the charters to the several towns in the colony in 1640, terminates the first period of this history. From 1641 to 1675, a period of more than thirtyfour years, the history of the colony (with one exception) presents but few momentous events.

During this second period, a profound peace was maintained with the natives. English settlements incorporated as towns were extended in every direction, and the territory was nearly covered by English grants. There were no domestic feuds or ecclesiastical controversies. Sectarians it is true occasionally disturbed the tranquillity of the inhabitants of this little commonwealth ; but persecution with them assumed its mildest form, and their annals have escaped that deep and indeli ble stain of blood, which pollutes the pages of the early history of their sterner and more intolerant brethren of Massachusetts. — They were somewhat apprehensive of the commissioners who were sent out by King Charles II. to examine the condition of the colonies, and to correct abuses, but in Plymouth there were no complaints, because there were no wrongs. In 1643 a union or confederation was effected between the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven, to which at first

PREFACE.

. VI Saybrook, then a separate and independent settlement on Con necticut river and which had been granted to Lord Say and Sele, Lord Brook, and Sir Richard Saltonstall, was admitted as a party, but which soon after lost its distinctive political character by a union with Connecticut. The principal objects of this con federation were to secure a harmonious cooperation in religious affairs ; — to adopt means for the surrender of servants, criminals, and fugitives from justice, escaping from one jurisdiction into another : by establishing an alliance offensive and defensive to provide for the common defence in war, for which soldiers were to be raised and money assessed in ascertained proportions, and for the prevention of wars, no colony was to wage one individu ally or without the consent of six out of the eight commissioners.

The spirit of enterprise which found its first employment in controversies with the natives took another direction, and in the prosecution of commerce found the real source of prosperity and wealth. Frugal and prudent from necessity, and industrious from habit, the colonists continued to advance by sure and certain steps in their career of successful exertion, until the breaking out of that horrible war which bears the name of its author, and which terminates the second and commences the third period of this history. Romantic indeed is the history of this third period, full of incident, exciting events, and high and heroic action. The war which fills this period of colonial history was a contest for existence. — It was the death struggle between the white and the red races, and the fate not only of Plymouth but of all New England was involved in the issue.

Philip, the Tecumseh of his age, was the chief of a confederacy which embraced nearly all the tribes of New England ; but his own residence and that of his native

PREFACE.

. VII tribe was within the territorial jurisdiction of Plymouth, and there fore much of the danger and much of the suffering which were occasioned by the war, fell upon that colony. — The whole popula tion were transformed into soldiers. — Every settlement contained garrisoned houses, and the martial spirit was kindled even in the bosoms of the women and children. The success of the English gave to them the disposal of the remaining lands of the Indians. They permitted a few miserable natives to hold some narrow possessions on sufferance, (an evidence of their conquest and debasement,) within that ample domain, once the heritage of their ancestors. Their numbers lessened. — They mingled with the blacks: — their distinctive character was lost, and the only physical evidences which now remain of a ' previous people,' are their uncoffined skeletons, which are occasionally exhumed, as though fate had determined to deny even to their bones, a resting place in that soil over which they once had roamed, the proud and solitary lords of the primeval sorest.

The dominion ofthe colony was now firmly established, and the colonists were relieved from all apprehensions of Indian hostility, and the fourth period in their history commences. During that period they in common with the other colonies of New England, suffered under the oppression of Sir Edmund Andross, and rejoiced in his overthrow. The revolution of 1688, restored them to independence. After the accession of William and Mary to the throne of Great Britain, but little regard was manifested for their peculiar rights, and as a measure of political convenience this colony was annexed to the younger but more powerful sister colony of Massachusetts in 1692, having existed as an independent government for a period of seventyone years.

PREFACE.

. VIII The people of Plymouth submitted to this arrangement with reluctance, but as the evil was unavoidable, they bore the loss of their independence with equanimity, and deported themselves as loyal subjects of the crown, and as good citizens of the Province, and as the laws, religion, customs, and principles of the Massa chusetts' colonists were nearly similar to their own, they soon amalgamated and became one people. It would be presumptuous perhaps to call this humble work a history : its relations are so minute, and to many may appear so trifling, that the common usage of the world would require that it should assume no higher name than that of memoir, yet a narrative of the earliest settlement of Rome or England as circumstantial, as minute, and as accurate as that which now exists respecting the settlement of New Plymouth, would be prized by scholars and antiquarians as the most precious of all the treasures of history.

Events which are obscured by the duskiness of antiquity excite an indescribable, peculiar, romantic, and mysterious interest, and could the very field be now pointed out through which a Roman consul had guided the plough : — could the very spot be ascertained where a Dictator had entered the eternal city in all the honors of a lawful triumph: — could the wild, dark haunts of the Druids be opened to the light, or the places identified where the soil of England had been pressed by the feet of Julius Cesar, or of Hengist and Horsa, or of William the Conqueror, the enthusiasm of the age would consecrate such ground, and no divine information would be required to proclaim its holiness. An attempt to arrange events which now are scattered through various books, although it may at best be considered but an effort at compilation, is entitled as the author apprehends to some

PREFACE.

. IX favor. — Time has already begun to throw his shadows over the earlier part of American history, and before the light fades entirely away, the slightest effort to arrest the fall of that dark curtain, which like the funeral pall covers all that have lived, and to present men and things as they actually were without leaving the future historian like the historian of antiquity, to grope his uncer tain way by the dim and hazy light of an age sabulous, and heroic, is entitled not only to favor but to indulgence. Fortunately an account of the earlier proceedings of the Plyr mouth colonists exists in the relations of Mourt and Edward Win slow : to these relations the annals of Prince are an invaluable appendage as they contain the only portion of the history written by Governor Bradford which terminated in 1646, and which contained a full, accurate, and minute account of all the transactions of the colony to that period. — This history is lost, and no trace of it remains except in these annals, which are only extended to the beginning of August, 1633, although it was the intention of the author to have brought them down to 1730.

Both Winslow and Bradford were personally concerned in all the transactions which they related, and as their veracity was unim peachable, their writings are entitled to unlimited credit. The work of Secretary Morton called the New England Memorial, contains much valuable information, although it has not the minuteness of detail which characterises the works of the others. It is rather like an official record interspersed with accounts of remarkable events, and special interpositions of Providence. Many interesting facts have been collected from the notes and appendix in the last edition of this work by the Hon. John Davis. B

PREFACE.

. X Some interesting matter touching the history of this colony is found in Winthrop's Journal, particularly in the notes to the last Edition by the Hon. James Savage, and in Mather's Magnalia, and Hubbard's history, as well as in the narrative which the latter has written of the Indian wars. Some valuable information has been gleaned from the collec tions of the Historical Society of Massachusetts, especially from such as relate to the settlement of the ancient Towns in the Colo ny, and their ecclesiastical and local history. A homely narrative of the transactions in which Colonel Church was personally engaged during Philip's war, of which he was the hero, has been consulted. — This narrative was written by a son of Church, from the notes and information of the father, and under his inspection, and was published during his life.

It may therefore be relied on for its accuracy. Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, Trumbull's History of Connecticut, and the second volume of Belknap's Biography, have been examined, — particularly the last, in which the author has condensed in a clear, perspicuous and elegant manner, almost all the earlier history ofthe Colony from Mourt, Winslow, Prince and Morton. Much information as to the laws has been gained from die ancient manuscript records. With a view to the history of Philip's war, three very scarce tracts which were all published in London, in 1675 and 1676, and which were once in the library of Sir Walter Scott, and were by him presented to an American gentleman, have been examined.. The first is entitled ' The Present State of New England with respect to the Indian War. — Wherein is an account of the true reason thereof, (as far as can be judged by men.)

PREFACE.

. XI Together with the most remarkable passages that have happened from the 20th of June, till the 10th of November, 1675. Faithfully composed by a merchant of Boston, and communicated to his friend in London.' * This work is full of errors, and it cannot be trusted except where the Author was an eye-witness to what he relates. Sau saman is said to have been sent by the Governor of Plymouth to convert Philip to Christianity, and that for this he was seized and sent to Plymouth by Philip, and while on his way there exhorted his guard to receive the gospel, which so much incensed them that they put him to death, and that it was not until two or three months after his death that his body was taken from its grave ! Massa soiet is called the grandfather of Philip ! In this history is con tained the account of the exploits of Cornellis the Dutch pirate, which Hutchinson has quoted.

N ' The second tract is entitled " A new and further Narrative of the State of New-England being a continued Account of the Bloody Indian War from March till August, 1676. Giving a per fect relation of the several devastations, engagements, and trans actions there ; as also the great successes, lately obtained against the Barbarous Indians, the reducing of King Philip, and the killing of one of the Queens, &c, together with a Catalogue of the losses in the whole, sustained on either side, since the said War began as near as can be collected. 'f This account is far more correct than the first. It generally coincides with the other histories, and some facts not mentioned in * Printed for Dorman Newman, at the King's Arms in Poultry, and at the Ship and anchor, at the Bridge-foot, on Southwark side 1675. t London pri.ited by F. B. for Dorman Newman, at the King's Arms in the Poultry, 1676.

PREFACE.

. XII these are disclosed which bear strong marks of authenticity. It was written July 22, 1676, and appears to have been preceded by two other letters. The third is entitled ' A true Account, of the most considerable Occurrences that have hapned in the Warre between the English and Indians in New-England, from the fifth of May, 1676 ; to the fourth of August last ; as also the successes, it hath pleased God to give the English against them, as it hath been communicated by letters to a friend in London. The most exact account yet printed.'* This short account, although it was written before the war had terminated, and when there were many crude reports in circula tion, is very accurate, and agrees in most respects with the subse quent histories. All these tracts appear to have been written in the form of let ters by residents in Boston to their friends in London.

From these sources this Memoir has been compiled, its merit is not in its novelty, as nothing now can be gleaned from tradition. It is a collection of historical facts which are scattered through many works, and is the first attempt to embody a connected his tory of the most ancient colony in New-England. * London, printed for Benjamin Billingsley, at the Printing Press in Corn hill, 1676. HISTORICAL MEMOIR OF PLYMOUTH COLONY.

Chapter I

Quarrel between King Henry VIII. and the Pope.—Protestant Schism.— Edward VI. Favors the Protestants.— Persecution of the Protestants in the Reign of Queen Mary.— Persecution of the Puritans in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. — Robert Brown, Richard Clifton, and John Robinson, gather a Congregation amongst the People of Lincoln, Nottingham, and Yorkshire. When Henry VIII. threw off the yoke of the Roman Church, he retained many of its tenets. Although the principles of Wickliffe, the earliestof the English reformers, had made some progress in some of the preceding reigns, yet at the commencement of his, the Protestants, were not known as a sect. The passions of the monarch produced a more thorough revolution in England, than was effected on the continent by the zeal and learning of the early reformers, instructed and animated as they were by the gigantic intellects and matchless courage of Luther and of Calvin.

Frustrated in a favorite project in which his heart was concerned, the rage of the monarch was inflamed to an implacable degree against the Pope. Resolute, fearless, and revengeful, none but one like him could have overthrown that mighty fabric of ecclesiastical power, which was engrafted on all the national institutions of Europe, and which it had been the work of centuries to rear. By declaring himself the supreme head of the Church of England, he discovered a disposition reckless of consequences and daring to the verge of desperation. This revolution was not caused by any dislike which the king entertained to the creed, or the ceremonies of the Church of Rome, for in early life he was attached to its doctrines with all the zeal and fondness of an enthusiast, and the title of ' Defender of the Faith' first bestowed on Henry by Leo X. for his zeal and orthodoxy in combating the doctrines of the heretic Luther, still distinguishes the protestant kings of England.

Many of the ceremonies of the papal church were preserved, and most of its articles of faith, and the reformed church of England still maintained in its form of worship a degree of splendor far surpassing that of the simple and intellectual worship of the followers of Calvin. The hierarchy was retained, the people still continued to reverence the arch-bishops, the bishops, and the other grades of prelates of the new establishment ; but the Catholic religion had received a mortal blow, — the protestant church acknowledged no earthly head but the King, and the dominion which the Popes had maintained over the feelings, opinions, and passions of the people, so powerful at times as to overcome their principles of loyalty, and their oaths of allegiance to their own sovereigns, was completely sub verted.

The avarice of the King completed the work which his anger commenced ; the suppression of the monastic establishments established his power on a firmer basis, and their spoils enriched his treasury : the law permitting the clergy to marry, and the general diffusion of the holy scriptures amongst the people completely destroyed the connexion, political and ecclesiastical, between the kingdom of England and the church of Rome ; and while the monarch defied, the people learned to despise the anger of the Pope. In the reign of Edward VI, the son and successor of Henry, the articles of faith were conformed more to the doctrines of Calvin, but the church retained its magnifi cent form of worship : the higher dignitaries of the establishment represented their order in the aristocratic branch of the national councils and mingled on equal terms with the peers of the realm, although Hooper, a man of great eloquence and learning, even in that reign, had resolved to refuse a bishopric rather than suffer him self to be clothed in an episcopal habit.

The bigotted Mary drove into exile many of the ablest and most learned protestants, and the sufferings of their brethren who remained, and maintained their faith at the stake, and obtained the crown of martyrdom in the flames, excited all the sympathy of the protestants on the conti nent. The exiles were received with hospitality and affection by the Calvinistic churches of Frankfort, Geneva, Basil and Strasburgh. A church was gathered at Geneva, by the famous William Whittingham, who fled from the persecution of Mary, and abandoned a great estate in England, — which, in its discipline, government, and form of worship, is said to have varied but little from that of the congregational churches of the present day. Suffering under the persecutions of the Catholics and their bloody Queen, the exiles imbibed an unconquerable dislike to all the modes of worship which had the slightest resemblance to that of Rome.

After the death of Mary and the accession of Queen Elizabeth, they returned home inflamed with a sense of their wrongs, and disgusted with the ceremonies of the English church, reestablished as it was on a protestant founda tion, because they thought those ceremonies savored too much of the superstition, and mummery, and idolatry of Rome — ardently attached to the more simple mode of worship which they had seen, and practised abroad, and cherishing the deepest veneration for the doctrines of the people with whom they had dwelt during their exile. The love of equality, a feeling natural to the human mind, was gratified with the idea that as in the kingdom of Heaven there was no respect for persons, and as the disciples and primitive Christians acknowledged no earthly rank, and only adored the God of the Heavens and the Earth, and reverenced their master and mediator, as his son, so on earth there should be no ecclesiastical rank, and men should be esteemed only in proportion to their spiritual gifts and attainments.

Elizabeth was obliged at the com mencement of her reign to humor these notions. A large proportion of her subjects still adhered to the Catholic doctrines, and she was threatened from abroad with the hostility of the Pope, and of all the Catholic Princes of Europe, and many of her ablest and most faithful servants had embraced the doctrines of the exiles ; but the Queen (having established herself firmly on the throne, and having overawed all her foreign enemies, and being respected as the head of the protestants throughout Europe,) felt secure from all danger of rebellion : — fond of magnificence, and having the power under the laws of the realm, severely to punish non-conformists, arbitrary in her principles, and stubborn in her opinions, she soon resorted to her legal powers to punish those who dared to think for themselves on the subject of religion, and the Puritans, a name which this class of people had received from their pretensions to superior piety in religion and purity of conduct, " were persecuted for what was termed error in opinion, — the clergy of this sect were deprived of their benefices, fined and imprisoned, and some were even put to death.

Al though the avowal of their opinions hazarded their safety, yet persecution inflamed their zeal, and strengthened their inflexibility ; they studied the scriptures day and night, and they imagined that their opinions respecting church government, were supported by the authority of inspiration and by the mandates of the divine Author of their religion. They discovered no external marks of splendor in the primitive christian churches ; the gospel was taught from the mouths of the poor, and the lowly. But the christian religion as felt and practised in the days of Queen Elizabeth, shed none of its mild, peaceful, and charitable influences upon the hearts of men ; — sectarian zeal smothered the zeal for gospel truth, and religion was only another name for party. — The Puritans possessed as little toleration as their persecutors, and felt no pity for the Arian, or the Anabaptist, when writhing in the flames for imputed heresy.

Almost every religious sect has had its martyrs, and its miracles, its infallible creed, its persecu tions, and its catalogue of damnable heresies, and like the fa bled sphynx has ever been ready to destroy those who could not explain the riddles, into which, they had transformed the plain truths of the gospel. Elizabeth a princess of uncommon sagacity, seemed to have lost it all on the sub ject of religion ; — hating the Catholics on one hand, and despising the Puritans on the other, she would herself set up the standard of orthodoxy, to which she had determined that all should conform. At her instigation, the two houses of Parliament, obsequious to her will, consented to an act ' by which every person who should absent himself from church during a month was subjected to fine and imprisonment ; and if after conviction, he did not within three months renounce his erroneous opinions, and conform to the laws, he was obliged to abjure the realm — but if he either refused to comply with this condition, or return ed from banishment, he should be put to death as a felon, without the benefit of clergy.' This tyrannical and perse cuting law was followed by the usual consequences of such laws.

All who had favored the Puritans were then induced to believe, that if in their distresses they deserted them it would be at the expense of honor, and at the risk of infamy. From an apprehension that their principles might be abandoned through fear, their consciences became sensitive. Deliberate opinions grew out of doubtful predilections, — and wavering inclinations. Those opinions soon became fixed and ruling principles, influencing all their conduct, absorbing all their attachments, and exciting all their enthusiasm. The moral man was changed, and he existed but for one purpose. To understand the principles and motives of human action, it would be well to revert to the origin and pro gress of the christian religion. After the Almighty had ceased to manifest his power by miracles, and his will by inspiration, — after giving to man a basis for his faith, in the birth, acts, sufferings, death and resurrection of his son, and the miracles of the apostles, he withdrew his visible glory from the earth, and left the remainder of his designs to the operation of human reason and of natural causes.

The primitive Christians opened the prospect of a paradise on earth, but when their successors had won their way to temporal power, and had grasped with eager hands the pillars of the throne, the frailties of humanity mingled with devotion, and the articles of faith were im posed by the sword. When the barbarians who subjected the Roman Empire knelt at the altar, and embraced the cross, their rude minds unable to realize the pure doctrines of him ' whose kingdom was not of this world,' and yet reverencing those who had diverted them from the senseless worship of a sabre, or the bloody worship of Woden, and had led them to the fountains of immortal life, in the warmth of gratitude and devotion, invested these spiritual teachers with temporal power, and the bishops became princes ; — hence politics were blended with religion, hence the union of church and state.

The intrigues of the statesman suspended the devotion of the warrior, and the votaries of the gospel, instead of seeking the kingdom of heaven, sought kingdoms on earth. The study of the scriptures was neglected for the study of politics, the clerical character was slighted — priests be came statesmen and courtiers and candidates for civil dis tinctions, and cardinals often guided the councils of the Italian states, of Spain, France, Scotland, and England. The Popes pursued their career of ambition and aggran dizement with all the zeal and energy of temporal mon archs, and succeeded in establishing a despotism over the mind, more thorough than that which was established by their republican andimperial predecessors over the liberties of mankind. The prelates of the reformed religion enjoyed some portion of the consideration, respect, and power, which had attended their predecessors, but they were unable to stay the spirit of reformation in its pro gress. — When the human mind is released from the re straint of ancient and long settled opinions, and its accustomed habits of obedience, it is apt to run riot with num berless vagaries and fantasies — with new and crude notions.