The Founding of New England/II

CHAPTER II

STAKING OUT CLAIMS

As we saw in the first chapter, nature had clearly defined the paths by which America might be found. The time when the discovery would be made was almost as definitely determined by events in the Old World. For countless centuries, Europe, by many routes and through many intermediaries, had traded with the vaguely localized countries of the Orient. Throughout the Middle Ages, not only had she been dependent on the East for most of her luxuries, but many of these, from long usage, had become necessities. About the beginning of the fourteenth century, this commerce, &#8220;the oldest, the most extensive, and the most lucrative trade known to Europe,&#8221; began to be interfered with by the internal changes in the East, mainly due to conquests by the Ottoman Turks. Beginning about 1300, marked by the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and continuing until all the seaports of the eastern Mediterranean, including those of Egypt, were in their possession by 1522, the process was a gradual one. At first uneasy, then alarmed, finally facing commercial ruin by the almost complete strangulation of her Oriental trade, Europe struggled frantically against geographical conditions, in her efforts to find a new and unimpeded route to the East.

During the latter part of the same period, geographical science had been making many strides; while the theory of the earth&#8217;s sphericity had been held, by some at least, since the days of Plato. After nearly two thousand years, motives developed which led men to turn that idea into action by use of the new discoveries, and in one generation Columbus sailed west to America, and Da Gama east to India, and Magellan circumnavigated the globe. The thought advanced by philosophy, denied by common sense, and fought by the Church, finally wrought the greatest change yet known in the world&#8217;s history through the commonplace necessities of trade.

Voyaging toward the northwest, in the hope of finding the treasures of the East, had possibly been undertaken annually from 1491, by certain citizens of Bristol, England, when the Italian, John Cabot, domiciled in their city, applied to King Henry VII for letters patent &#8220;for the discovery of new and unknown lands.&#8221; The Cabots themselves left no account of their voyages, and the story must be made up from a few contemporary documents, some hearsay evidence, and a large amount of inference. Apparently, John Cabot sailed, some time in 1497, under the patent granted to himself and his sons, and by the end of August was back in England, after a voyage of several months. The location of the landfall, made June 24, is wholly uncertain. A second voyage was made the following year, and a considerable part of the northeast coast appears to have been explored, although it is impossible to place the limits of the discovery. Whether he was accompanied on either or both of the voyages by his son Sebastian is uncertain, but it is probable that he was. As for the rest, one is tempted to echo Dawson&#8217;s remark, that &#8220;as for John Cabot, Sebastian says he died, which is one of the few undisputed facts in the discussion.&#8221; To us, the importance of the voyage lies in the fact that upon it England based her claims, in later times, to a portion of the New World, though she made no effort to colonize for another eighty years, and the immediate effect of the discovery was not great. The times were not yet ripe. Exploration and land-grabbing were games for kings and not for private endeavor, as the merchants of Bristol had doubtless found; and Henry, as the Milanese ambassador observed, was &#8220;not lavish.&#8221;

Owing to the great demand for fish in a Catholic Europe, however, the shores of Newfoundland soon became the accustomed resort of English, French, and Portuguese. The coast between Canada and Florida, nevertheless, remained practically unexplored, and the maps of the period either break the continent into islands, or connect the two known portions by a fanciful delineation, considered by some students to represent the eastern coast of Asia. Where nothing is certain, all is possible, and it was thought that the passage to the East, so vainly sought elsewhere, might yet be found in this unknown part of the world. In 1524, Verrazano, under the flag of France, and, a year later, Gomez, under that of Spain, undertook again the task of finding a westward route to Zipangu and Cathay. The Frenchman, apparently, coasted northward from Carolina to Newfoundland, and the Spaniard seems to have covered part of the same range, though the limits are not known, nor even the direction in which he sailed.

The three main contestants for empire in North America had now appeared. Spain, France, and England had all planted their flags upon our shores, although their future struggles were as yet hardly foreshadowed. The fishing grounds, on the high seas and far from the routes of Spain&#8217;s gold-laden galleons, were open to all, though the English seem early to have established some sort of authority over the rough fishermen of the nations gathered there. The continent itself, however, was merely an unwelcome barrier, save the Spanish possessions in the south, with which, as yet, no other nation had thought of meddling. Nevertheless, a new era had opened, and commerce, which, from the dawn of history, had clung to the Mediterranean, now abandoned that enclosed sea for the open highways of the world&#8217;s oceans. The Oriental trade began to flow through new channels, and Spain, by the conquest of Mexico, in 1522, tapped unlimited sources of the precious metals. The enormous import business from the East, formerly concentrated in the hands of the great mercantile cities of Italy, passed to the Iberian powers, while men&#8217;s horizons were widened by the new discoveries, and old established methods, routes, and connections had received severe shocks. The example of Spain and Portugal was making other nations dream of gaining fabulous wealth by finding their way to the riches of the Orient, or gold in the wilds of America.

For the next four centuries, the civilization of Europe, which throughout the medi&#230;val period had been hemmed within a narrow region by strong barbaric powers, was able to expand against almost negligible resistance, until, after having encircled the world, it is again faced in our own day by a &#8220;closed political system.&#8221; At the very moment when new forces were being let loose by the social ferment following the Renaissance and the Reformation, the new lands offered vents through which those forces might in part escape, without causing such explosions as wholly to wreck the social system. Their presence, or, to phrase it differently, the existence of a practically unlimited frontier, during the whole of our colonial period, was one of the great formative elements in our institutions, and the relations between the colonies and England.

We are so accustomed to think of that country as the great trading nation and mistress of the seas, that it is hard to conceive of a time when she had not even faintly dreamed that her destiny was to be upon the water, when her trade was still mainly in the hands of foreigners, and she herself was merely a producer of raw materials for the manufacturers on the continent. Such, however, was the situation at the opening of the sixteenth century. Men, indeed, began to talk of the new discoveries, which were even introduced into the rude theatre of the time; but, in the main, they stuck to their last, and fished and grew wool like their fathers. As yet, there was not the vaguest thought of a colonial empire&#8212;only dreams of gold and spices, and the silent fishermen catching cod.

The accession of Elizabeth opened the door to imperial ambition. Spain was, indeed, at the height of her power, where England&#8217;s day was yet to come. Elizabeth&#8217;s resources needed careful husbanding, and no open breach between the two countries could be allowed; but political interests were still European in the minds of statesmen, and peace, though many times in jeopardy, was not to be broken lightly for what English seamen might do &#8220;beyond the line.&#8221; America was a means to European ends for Spain, and, until the depredations of the English became so great as to threaten those ends, murder, robbery, and the looting of cities passed with no action beyond protests, which Elizabeth met and parried.

We must pass by the doings of Hawkins, Drake, and the other sea-dogs, the whole pack of whom were soon in full cry after the hated Spaniards in their slow-moving galleons, laden with the treasure upon which their European power was nourished. This latter fact was now recognized, and wild and, perhaps, unlawful as were these English seamen, we must remember that, unlike common pirates, their depredations were not alone for private ends, but were blows struck for their religion, their country, and their queen. Had it not been for them, the Armada might indeed have been invincible, and the civilization of North America have been Latin instead of Anglo-Saxon.

One of the outstanding characteristics of the later Tudor period was the remarkable development of individual initiative. Men were no longer content &#8220;ever like sheepe to haunte one trade,&#8221; but in every field of human endeavor were striking across new paths. It was, moreover, an age of glorious amateurs. As in the best days of Greece, the bars that bound the individual within narrow limits of professionalism were broken asunder. It was as if to the nation&#8217;s mature powers had suddenly been added the gift of youth. It was a cry of youth which Thorne uttered when he swept away all objections to the dangers of the Northwest Passage with his &#8220;there is no land unhabitable nor sea innavigable.&#8221; Elizabeth&#8217;s well-known methods, which perhaps temperament, necessity, and policy all had their share in fashioning, were admirably adapted to bring out, and to use to the utmost, these qualities in her subjects. Personal loyalty and individual initiative were largely fostered in place of taxation and governmental enterprise, and the patriotism of a united nation rose to new levels. &#8220;He is not worthy to live at all,&#8221; wrote Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in 1576, &#8220;that for feare, or danger of death, shunneth his countries service, and his owne honour.&#8221;

This growing national feeling was strengthened by religious motives. The persecutions under Mary, and the tortures of the Inquisition, to which English sailors were so often subjected in the ports of Spain, both played their part in the drama now being enacted. Five thousand English volunteered for service against the Spaniard in the Netherlands, and the Queen&#8217;s hand was being forced by the national feeling that she herself had aroused. The conquest of Portugal by Spain, in 1580, nominally transferred to the latter all the colonial possessions of the entire world she did not already possess, leaving no room open for other nations, according to Spanish pretensions. The English government at last spoke, however, and in the same year, in answer to Spain&#8217;s demand for the return of Drake&#8217;s plunder, announced that Spain &#8220;by the law of nations could not hinder other princes from freely navigating those seas and transporting colonies to those parts where the Spaniards do not inhabit; that prescription without possession availed nothing.&#8221; The rights of other nations were definitely settled by the defeat of the Armada eight years later. Business was beginning to improve somewhat after its long decline. The Muscovy Company had been chartered in 1555, and trade was seeking those new outlets which Sebastian Cabot had been recalled from Spain to find; but England felt the effects of the vast injection of American bullion into the currency system of Europe later than the continental countries. After the recoinage of the debased money in 1559, however, the advance in prices, which had already begun, was very rapid, with effects upon the country gentry and other classes, which were to have a marked influence upon American colonization.

In the meantime, while Drake was hastening home from the Pacific in the Pelican, loaded to the gunwales with the spoils of Spanish treasure-ships, another voyage, the first, except those of fishermen, since the ill-fated escapade of a London lawyer in 1536, was being made to the shores of Newfoundland. The motive was the old continuing one of a passage to the Orient by the northwest, although little is known of its details. The Queen, however, granted to its leader, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a patent to colonize and rule such lands as he might choose from his new discoveries. This patent, which was issued in 1578, and marked a new epoch in England&#8217;s American policy, followed in many respects the charters of the trading companies granted by the Crown both previously and subsequently. It had, however, a wholly novel feature in the clause which permitted Gilbert to transport a colony to his new possessions. It is probable that this first attempt to plant an English community beyond the seas was largely based upon the experience being gained at this very time in the efforts to colonize Ireland. Sir Humphrey himself, with other west-country gentlemen, had undertaken to plant colonies on the Crown lands in Ulster, eleven years before, and various plans and essays had been made, though unsuccessfully. These colonizing schemes in Ireland were being considered and carried out during the whole period of the early efforts to plant colonies in America, and many individuals and city companies were interested in Irish and American lands at the same time. Both were almost equally wild and uncivilized, and both were rich and undeveloped. The Irish Plantation Society, formed in 1613, was a serious rival to the Virginia Company, and diverted both funds and colonists at a critical time for the American scheme.

The beginnings of the continental American colonies, indeed, are too apt to be considered as isolated events. Their unique importance from the standpoint of American history has tended to obscure their real nature. From that standpoint, they are naturally viewed as the founding of a great nation; but if they are considered solely in that relation, not only the planting of the colonies themselves, but the subsequent history of their relations with the mother-country, and the whole course of England&#8217;s old colonial policy, are bound to be misunderstood. The American colonies, in their inception, were largely business ventures of groups of individuals or joint-stock companies, and, as such, were but episodes in the expansion of English commerce. The patents and charters issued to companies for trade and discovery, prior to that of Gilbert, contained the germs of most of the provisions which subsequently found their way into the charters of American colonies, and the ideas of colonial administration. Monopoly of trade for a definite time was naturally granted, as recompense for the great expense and risk involved in opening new channels. The trades, moreover, were also justly regulated for the benefit of England rather than of the few individuals who were shareholders in the enterprises. Hence, we find stipulations such as that in the Cabot charter of 1496, requiring all business done under it to pass through the port of Bristol only; or that in the charter of 1566, to the Fellowship of English Merchants, requiring that all goods must be carried solely in English ships, manned for the most part with English sailors. These and other restrictions were the germs of a domestic economic policy which, although reasonable enough in its inception, was to be pregnant with such fatal results when pursued consistently, and without taking into consideration the altered conditions brought about by the unexpectedly tremendous growth and political needs of those particular colonies planted by certain trading companies or individuals in America.

Under the system of international intercourse prevailing in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was found necessary to provide some sort of government and authority for the groups of English merchants, and their clerks, residing in foreign countries. The problem was met, in 1404, by Henry IV, who granted a charter to those resident in the Teutonic countries of northern Europe, permitting them to meet together to elect their own governors, and to make their own laws, the king ratifying and requiring obedience to such legislation in advance. In 1462, Edward IV, in a charter to those resident in the Netherlands, appointed the governor, but allowed the merchants to elect twelve &#8220;Justiciers,&#8221; who were to sit with him as a court. The merchants were also to make their own laws, which, however, had to be approved by the royal governor. When it was no longer a question of trading in a civilized country, but of discovering new ones, unoccupied, or occupied only by heathen, the discoverer was naturally allowed to take possession in the name of the king, and was enfeoffed with the new land, the condition of tenure usually being a fifth of the precious metals found.

In these commercial charters, we thus find the germs of the commonwealth, royal, and proprietary colonies of the seventeenth century. There was no break at the beginning of American history. Nor was there any conscious intention upon England&#8217;s part of founding an empire. The English colonies were by-products of British commercial activity, and English &#8220;colonial policy&#8221; was but a mere phase of her commercial policy. It is only by that light that the development of events can be rightly understood.

The lands conveyed to Gilbert were suitable for Englishmen to dwell in and to be made valuable would require to be populated. This, however, raised a new question. Heretofore, men had lived as merchants in foreign but civilized countries, or fished or traded in others. If, now, they were to settle permanently in this barbarous land, would they cease to be Englishmen without becoming anything else? Elizabeth cut the knot by decreeing that such new countries should owe personal allegiance to herself, and, in that way, be united to her &#8220;Realmes of England and Ireland&#8221;; and, further, that any one born in the new lands, or emigrating thither from the old, should have all the privileges of a free-born native of the Realm. These questions, now first arising, as to whether the settlers in new lands were within or without the Realm, and, if without, then whether they could be held as subject to the government that functioned for the Realm, were to become more and more insistent of answer in the days to come. But when Elizabeth granted her patent to Gilbert, little could any one have realized the size of England&#8217;s future empire in America, or that that empire would be lost by civil war, in part because the answers to those questions could not be found. The main factor that gave rise to this distinction between the Realm and the Dominions, and that was to be primarily responsible for the failure satisfactorily to adjust the relations between them, was the physical distance, in terms of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, by which they were separated.

Gilbert&#8217;s efforts to colonize, however, like those of his half-brother, Raleigh, resulted only in failure. The time was ill chosen, as there was still work enough for enterprising spirits, and the employment of capital, in other directions. Under the stimulus of the defeat of the Armada, English seamen scoured the sea in search of Spanish prey, and it has been estimated that eight hundred Spanish vessels were lost in four years. If in the light of such opportunities, colonizing seemed but a poor investment, voyaging and discovery, nevertheless, proceeded at a rapid rate. But New England, in spite of its being so near the field of English activities in the fisheries, was neglected, although its coast may occasionally have been visited by enterprising souls like Richard Strong, who sailed to &#8220;Arambec,&#8221; in 1593, in search of &#8220;sea-Oxen.&#8221;

The land itself seems not to have been thought worth investigating until Bartholomew Gosnold made a clandestine voyage thither, to his own profit, and to Raleigh&#8217;s annoyance, in 1602. Formerly, this little trading trip of Gosnold&#8217;s, undertaken for the Earl of Southampton, Lord Cobham, and others, was thought to have been a serious attempt at colonization with the consent of Raleigh, the sphere of operations lying within the limits of his patent. The voyage thus secured more attention from historians than it deserved. Apparently some sort of permanent trading-post was, indeed, intended, as of the thirty-two persons who went to America, twenty were expected to &#8220;remayne there for population.&#8221; &#8220;None did, however; and after having visited Massachusetts Bay, christened Cape Cod, and spent some time on the island of Cuttyhunk, where they built a fort, and loaded their ship with sassafras, the whole company returned to England, after an absence of four months. Raleigh, ignorant of the episode, but finding the &#8220;sassephrase&#8221; market taking a sudden drop, investigated, and the fact of the voyage came to light. Although he confiscated the cargo, he became reconciled with both Gosnold and his own nephew, Bartholomew Gilbert, who also had had a hand in the business, and both were subsequently employed in Virginia.

In the following year, Raleigh&#8217;s consent was obtained by Hakluyt and some merchants of Bristol, to the sending out of another expedition, under Martin Pring, with some of Gosnold&#8217;s men aboard, for the purposes of trade. The little company, in their two vessels, coasted along the shores of Maine, explored Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth Harbor, overlooked by Gosnold, and having loaded their ships with the much-desired sassafras, went back to England, to confirm Gosnold&#8217;s good opinion of the country. This was to receive still further confirmation from Weymouth two years later.

During these two years Elizabeth had died, and Raleigh had been convicted of treason. Such rights as he may have possessed to the land of North Virginia were ignored, therefore, when the Earl of Southampton, Thomas Arundell, and others dispatched Weymouth to find a suitable place for colonizing in the parts visited by Gosnold and Pring. This was the real intent of the expedition, although it was given out that it was for the discovery of the Northwest Passage. There is some evidence that the proposed colony was to be for Roman Catholics. At least, Sir George Peckham and Sir Thomas Gerrard, who claimed to be assignees of the Gilbert patent, had secured the privilege for Romanists of becoming colonists, and the Earl of Southampton and his leading associates in the present venture were of that faith. Weymouth spent about a month on the coast, exploring the shores about the St. George&#8217;s Islands and the river of the same name.

The English, however, had not been the only explorers upon the New England coast, nor to them only had it begun to appeal as a possible place for colonizing. For the French, as well as the English, the sixteenth century in America had been a period of exploration, of staking out of vague claims, and of unsuccessful efforts to establish permanent settlements. The first decade of the seventeenth was to witness the success of both nations in the latter undertaking, the English at Jamestown in 1607, and the French at Quebec but one year later, so close was the race between them. In the territory of New England, however, both nations were to try, and fail, within the same period; and citizens of both countries had already, from time to time, received grants of undefined extension in that general part of the world, when finally a charter with definite bounds was assigned by the French King to the Sieur de Monts, in 1603. This grant embraced all the territory between the 40th and 46th degrees of latitude, or from Philadelphia to Montreal.

The issuance of this patent was immediately followed by an attempt at settlement, de Monts and Champlain, both of whom had previously been in Canada, sailing with a hundred and twenty men in the spring following the receipt of the grant. Buildings were erected, and the first winter passed on the island of St. Croix, in the mouth of the river of the same name, which empties into Passamaquoddy Bay. It was thus the first authorized attempt to colonize any part of New England. The choice of a site had been unfortunate, and in the following spring, the colony removed to Nova Scotia, where it lasted two years more before the cancellation of the grant resulted in its abandonment. A lively and entertaining account of life in the colony was written by a genial lawyer, who was one of its members, and the attention with which American affairs were then being watched is indicated by the appearance of an English translation in the same year in which the original came out in Paris. During the three years of his stay, Champlain was indefatigable in exploring the coast, making three principal voyages along the shores of New England, which he described and mapped as far south as the present settlement of Chatham, in Massachusetts.

The coast of Maine and the shores of Massachusetts Bay were carefully studied for sites for settlement, and the former was for long to form a debatable land between French and English. These years also saw the foundation laid of the friendship between French and Indian, which was to cost the English dear. De Monts&#8217;s patent contemplated trade with the natives, rather than an agricultural colony; and the French empire in America, as has already been noted, consisted mainly of a series of trading-posts. It was to the interest of the French that the Indian should remain, as he himself wished, a hunter; whereas the growth of the English agricultural colonies denied him the possibility of continuing his savage life, without, on the other hand, absorbing him into civilization. It was not merely that the French, in the main, were tactful and friendly, accepting the Indian as he was, and even intermarrying, while the English were harsh and disdainful. It may be said that one Indian required to sustain his life approximately as many square miles as the English agriculturist, with his domestic animals, needed acres. On the other hand, the uses to which the French put the soil were identical with those for which it served the savage. The English, indeed, &#8220;bought&#8221; land, which the French never did; but the French and the Indian shared the soil to the profit of both, while the English deprived the native of his means of subsistence, in exchange for coats and beads. Not that they did so intentionally; but the consequence was inevitable. Nor was it the Indian alone who was to fall before the farmer and founder of towns. The French coureurs des bois, and traders in the scattered posts, were likewise to fall and, in part, for the same reason.

Nevertheless, at the time of the first authorized English attempt to colonize New England, the French were, if anything, ahead in the race. Champlain&#8217;s knowledge of the coast and its possibilities was quite as accurate, probably, as that of Gosnold or Pring or Weymouth, though English writers usually give many pages to the latter trio while dismissing Champlain in a line or two. A definite grant of the territory had been made, and the first colony of their hereditary enemy was seemingly successfully started within the limits of the English patent, when King James affixed his signature to that document. A struggling little settlement in Virginia, however, was to prove the undoing of the French in the north, and win the New England coast for the English, though not without further effort on the part of its future settlers. But, whatever the local successes of French or English, it must not be forgotten that the colonies of both nations were mere pawns in the game of European policy, and that the allegiance of the colonist was to be determined in the last analysis, not by their own comparative strength on faraway shores, but by the strength which the two nations could put forth in their navies on the sea.