Page:The American encyclopedia of history, biography and travel (IA americanencyclop00blak).pdf/354

 but the absence, of the Quakers. Some adherents of the Church of England, who had come out without invitation to join them, were summarily sent back to the mother country. Two hundred years ago, the principles of religious toleration were but little understood; yet as the Company owned the territory, and had emigrated for the avowed purpose of forming a religious community by themselves, it is perhaps harsh in us to charge them with intolerance. They had a right to expel intruders.

Of course, great severity of manners and punctiliousness of religious observances were enjoined. Various sumptuary laws were enacted; the Sabbath was observed with Jewish strictness; blasphemy, witchcraft, and adultery, were punished with death; slanderers were whipt, cropped, and banished. But except in these particulars, and a few others of no great importance, the Mosaic law was not established in the colony. The people had good sense enough to see that it was not adapted to the circumstances and the times. No restriction was imposed upon them except that contained in the Charter, that no laws should be made repugnant to the laws of England; and this was construed, very liberally, to mean that no part of the English law was in force there till it was expressly reenacted. At first the magistrates governed without any other rule than their own sense of right and their interpretation of the law of God. But the people becoming jealous of so large a discretion, a code, or 'Body of Liberties,' was established in 1641, consisting of one hundred articles, drawn up with singular brevity and clearness, embracing many of the best and most liberal provisions of the English Common Law, and, in some respects, in advance both of English and American law of the present day. This code became the basis of legislation, not only in Massachusetts, but throughout New England, the other colonies adopting many of its most important provisions. In one important respect, the Mosaic rule was followed in preference to the English law; the estates of persons dying without a will were divided equally among the children, except that the eldest son received a double share. This law, favoring the distribution rather than the aggregation of property, made the establishment of a territorial aristocracy impossible, kept up the idea of equality among the people, and tended strongly to the development of republican sentiments.

Another circumstance, which silently fostered the democratic spirit of the people, was the great extent of their territory in comparison with their numbers, and the disposition that has characterized them from that day to this, to spread themselves over the face of the country, instead of remaining together on one spot. When as yet they were only a few hundred in number, instead of seeking protection against the savages and other perils of the wilderness by union and concentration, they colonized a dozen or twenty distinct townships, the extremes of which were some thirty miles apart. Eight townships were represented in a General Court held only two years after Winthrop landed; and before the colony was ten years old, or contained in all more than 15,000 settlers, at least twenty distinct settlements were formed. But the most remarkable instance of this tendency to segregation took place as early as 1634, when Mr. Hooker and his whole church at Newtown petitioned for leave to remove to Connecticut, the avowed reason for this step being the want of pasturage for their cattle; and 'it was alleged by Mr. Hooker as a fundamental error, that the towns were set so near to each other.' The settlements being thus scattered,