NEW

CHAPTER XIV.

MASSACHUSETTS.-THE UNION.

JEW ENGLAND was fast becoming a nation. Wellnigh fifty villages dotted the face of the country. Enterprises of all kinds were rife. Manufactures, commerce and the arts were introduced. William Stephens, a shipbuilder of Boston, had already built and launched an American vessel of four hundred tons' burden. Twenty-one thousand two hundred people had found. a home between Plymouth Rock and the Connecticut.

2. Circumstances suggested a union of the colonies. The western frontier was exposed to the hostilities of the Dutch on the Hudson. Similar trouble was apprehended from the French on the north. Indian tribes capable of mustering a thousand warriors were likely at any hour to fall upon the helpless villages. The prevalence of common interests made a union of some sort indispensable.

3. The first effort to consolidate the colonies was ineffectual. But in 1643, a plan of union was adopted, by which Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven were joined in a confederacy, called THE UNITED COLONIES OF NEW ENGLAND. The chief authority was conferred upon an assembly composed of two representatives from each colony. These delegates were chosen annually at an election where all the freemen voted by ballot. There was no president other than the speaker of the assembly. Provision was made for the admission of other colonies into the union, but none were ever admitted.

4. At a meeting of the assembly in December, 1641, Nathaniel Ward brought forward a written instrument, which was adopted as the constitution of the State. This statute was called the BODY OF LIBERTIES, and was ever afterward esteemed as the great charter of colonial freedom. In 1644 it was decreed that the

councilors and the representatives of the people should sit apart, each with their own officers and under their own management. By this measure the legislature was made independent and of equal authority with the governor's council.

5. During the supremacy of the Long Parliament in England several acts were passed which endangered the interests of Massachusetts, but powerful friends, especially Sir Henry Vane, stood up in Parliament and defended the colony against her enemies. After the abolition of monarchy, an English statute was made which threatened the complete overthrow of the new State. Massachusetts was invited to surrender her charter, and to hold her courts in the name of Parliament. But the people of New England were too cautious to accept the proposition. Cromwell did not insist on the measure, and Massachusetts retained her charter.

6. The Protector was the friend of the American colonies. The people of New England were his special favorites. For more than ten years he continued their benefactor. During his administration Massachusetts was left in the full enjoyment of her coveted rights; and the people were as free as those of England.

7. In 1652 it was decreed by the general court at Boston that the jurisdiction of the province extended as far as three miles north of the source of the Merrimac. By this measure the territory of Massachusetts was extended to Casco Bay. Settlements had been made on the Piscataqua in 1626, but had not flourished. In 1639 a charter was issued to Sir Ferdinand Gorges, who became proprietor of the province. His cousin, Thomas Gorges, was made deputy-governor. A constitution, big enough for an empire, was drawn up, and the village of York became the capital. Meanwhile the Plymouth Council had granted to another corporation sixteen hundred square miles of the territory around Casco Bay, and this claim had been purchased by Rigby, a member of Parliament. Between him and Gorges disputes arose; the villagers of Maine appealed to the court at Boston to settle the difficulty, and the province was annexed to Massachusetts.

8. In July of 1656, the QUAKERS began to arrive at Boston. The first who came were Ann Austin and Mary Fisher. They were caught and searched for marks of witchcraft, and then thrown

into prison After several weeks' confinement they were brought forth and banished. Before the end of the year eight others were arrested and sent back to England. A law was passed that Quakers who persisted in coming to Massachusetts should have their ears cut off and their tongues bored through with a red-hot iron.

9. In 1657 Ann Burden, who had come from London to preach against persecution, was seized and beaten. Others were whipped and exiled. The assembly of the four colonies convened, and the penalty of death was passed against the Quakers as disturbers of the public peace.

10. In 1659 four persons were arrested and brought to trial. They were given the option of going into exile or of being hanged. Mary Dyar and Nicholas Davis chose banishment; but Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson stood firm and were sentenced to death. Mary Dyar returned from her exile and was also condemned. The men were hanged without mercy; and the woman was banished. But she returned a second time and was executed. William Leddra was next tried, condemned, and hanged.

11. Before the trial of Leddra was concluded, Wenlock Christison rushed into the court-room and upbraided the judges for shedding innocent blood. He spoke boldly in his own defence; but the jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and he was condemned. Others, eager for martyrdom, came forward, and the jails were filled with prisoners. But before the day arrived for Christison's execution, the public conscience was aroused; the law was repealed, and Christison, with twenty-seven others, was liberated.

12. The English Revolution had now run its course. Cromwell was dead. Tidings of the restoration of Charles II. reached Boston on the 27th of July, 1660. In the same vessel that bore the news came Edward Whalley and William Goffe, two of the judges who had passed sentence of death on Charles I. Governor Endicott received them with courtesy. British agents came in hot pursuit to arrest them. For a while the fugitives baffled the officers, then escaped to New Haven, and at last found refuge at the village of Hadley, where they passed the rest of their lives.

13. On the restoration of the English monarchy, a law was passed by which all vessels not bearing the English flag were for

bidden to trade in New England. Articles produced in the colonies and demanded in England should be shipped to England only. Other articles might be sold in any of the ports of Europe. The products of England should not be manufactured in America, and should be bought from England only; and a duty of five per cent was put on both exports and imports. This was the beginning of those measures which produced the AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

14. In 1664 war broke out between England and Holland. It became a part of the English plans to conquer the Dutch settlements on the Hudson. Charles II. was also anxious to obtain control of all the New England colonies; and with this end in view, four commissioners were appointed to go to America to settle colonial disputes, and to exercise authority in the name of the king. The real object was to get possession of the charter of Massachusetts. In July, 1664, the royal judges arrived at Boston.

15. They were not wanted at Boston. The people of Massachusetts knew that this supreme judgeship was dangerous to their right of self-government. The colonial charter was accordingly put into the hands of a committee for safe keeping. The general court forbade the citizens to answer any summons issued by the royal judges. A letter, full of manly protests, was sent to the king. The commissioners were rejected in all the colonies except Rhode Island. Meanwhile, the English monarch, learning how his judges had been received, recalled them, and they left the country. For ten years after this event, the colony was very prosperous.

RECAPITULATION.

Progress of New England. -Circumstances favor a union.-Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven are confederated.-Other colonies not admitted.-A Body of Liberties is formed.-The two legislative branches are separated.-The English Revolution is favorable to New England.-Vane defends the colonies.-Parliament demands the charter of Massachusetts.-Cromwell the friend of Massachusetts.-Maine is annexed.-Early settlements in Maine.-The Quakers arrive at Boston.-Are persecuted and banished. The death penalty against them.-Four persons are executed.-The law is repealed. -News of the restoration reaches Boston.-Whalley and Goffe arrive. And escape to Connecticut.-The Navigation Act is passed.-War between England and Holland.-Charles II. attempts to subvert the charter.-Commissioners are sent to Massachusetts.-Are defeated in their objects.-The colony prospers.

THE

CHAPTER XV.

MASSACHUSETTS.-KING PHILIP'S WAR.

HE old king Massasoit died in 1662. His son, Alexander, now became chief of the nation, but died within the year; and the chieftainship descended to the younger brother, PHILIP OF MOUNT HOPE. It was the fate of this brave man to lead his people in a final struggle against the whites. Causes of war

already existed, and the time had come for the conflict.

2. The natives of New England had sold their lands. The English were the purchasers; the chiefs had signed the deeds; the price had been fairly paid. The old men died, but the deeds remained, and the lands could not be recovered. There were at this time in the country east of the Hudson about twenty-five thousand Indians and fifty thousand English. The young warriors could not understand the validity of land-titles. They sighed for the freedom of their fathers' hunting-grounds. The ring of English axes had scared the game out of the forest, and English nets had scooped the fishes from the rivers. The Wampanoags had nothing left but the peninsulas of Bristol and Tiverton.

3. There were personal grievances also. King Alexander had been arrested, tried by an English jury, and imprisoned. He had caught his death fever in a Boston jail. Perhaps King Philip, if left to himself, would have still sought peace. He was not a rash man; and he clearly foresaw the result of a war with the whites. But the young men of the tribe were thirsting for revenge, and could no longer be restrained. The women and children were put under the protection of Canonchet, king of the Narragansetts. On the 24th of June, 1675, the village of Swanzey was attacked, and eight Englishmen were killed.

4. Within a week the militia of Plymouth, joined by volunteers