The New English Canaan of Thomas Morton with Introductory Matter and Notes. Thomas MortonЧитать онлайн книгу.
fall asunder. Repent you cruel schismatics, repent.[126] These things have happened, and I shall see, (notwithstanding their boasting and false alarms in the Massachusetts, with feigned cause of thanksgiving,) their merciless cruelty rewarded, according to the merit of the fact, with condign punishment for coming into these parts, like Sampson’s foxes with fire-brands at their tails.[127] The King and Council are really possessed of their preposterous loyalty and irregular proceedings, and are incensed against them: and although they be so opposite to the catholic axioms, yet they will be compelled to perform them, or at leastwise, suffer them to be put in practice to their sorrow. In matter of restitution and satisfaction, more than mystically, it must be performed visibly, and in such sort as may be subject to the senses in a very lively image. My Lord Canterbury having, with my Lord Privy Seal, caused all Mr. Cradock’s letters to be viewed, and his apology in particular for the brethren here, protested against him and Mr. Humfrey, that they were a couple of imposterous knaves; so that, for all their great friends, they departed the council chamber in our view with a pair of cold shoulders. I have staid long, yet have not lost my labor, although the brethren have found their hopes frustrated; so that it follows by consequence, I shall see my desire upon mine enemies: and if John Grant had not betaken him to flight, I had taught him to sing clamavi in the Fleet before this time, and if he return before I depart, he will pay dear for his presumption. For here he finds me a second Perseus: I have uncased Medusa’s head, and struck the brethren into astonishment. They find, and will yet more to their shame, that they abuse the word and are to blame to presume so much—that they are but a word and a blow to them that are without. Of these particulars I thought good, by so convenient a messenger, to give you notice, lest you should think I had died in obscurity, as the brethren vainly intended I should, and basely practised, abusing justice by their sinister practices, as by the whole body of the committee, una voce, it was concluded to be done, to the dishonor of his majesty. And as for Ratcliffe, he was comforted by their lordships with the cropping of Mr. Winthrop’s ears: which shows what opinion is held amongst them of King Winthrop with all his inventions and his Amsterdam fantastical ordinances, his preachings, marriages, and other abusive ceremonies, which do exemplify his detestation to the Church of England, and the contempt of his majesty’s authority and wholesome laws, which are and will be established in these parts, invitâ Minervâ. With these I thought fit to salute you, as a friend, by an epistle, because I am bound to love you, as a brother, by the gospel, resting your loving friend.
THOMAS MORTON.[128]
Dated 1 Mo. Maii, 1634.
Morton is always confused and inaccurate in his statements, and this letter afforded no exception to the rule. It is impossible to be quite sure of what particular occasions he refers to in it. He may in the same breath be speaking of different things. Whether, for instance, the hearing to which he alludes, at which the patent “was brought in view,” was the same or another meeting from that in which Cradock’s letters were produced, is not clear. It would seem as though he were speaking of the February hearing before the whole Council, and yet he may be describing a subsequent hearing in April before the Lords Commissioners. He speaks of the “council chamber” and of “the whole body of the Committee,” and then alludes to the presence of Saltonstall, Humfrey and Cradock. Now these persons were before the Council in the hearing of 1632, and they may all of them, as Cradock certainly was, have been before it in February 1634; but Humfrey could hardly have appeared before the Lords Commissioners, as he seems to have sailed for New England early in the month during which they were appointed. The meeting which Morton describes, therefore, was probably that of February 28, 1634; and it would seem to have savored strongly of the Star Chamber and High Commission. Cradock and Humfrey were apparently scolded and abused by Laud in the style for which he was famous, and the admission by the former, that the charter had gone to America, had led to his being called “an imposterous knave,” and sharply told to send for it back at once. The well-known foibles of the Primate had been skilfully played upon by accounts of Winthrop’s “Amsterdam fantastical ordinances, his preachings, marriages, and other abusive ceremonies;” and they had much the effect that a red flag is known to have on a bull. Nothing was now heard of the King’s intention of severely punishing those who abused “his governor;” but, on the contrary, Ratcliffe was “comforted with the cropping of Mr. Winthrop’s ears.” Gorges was governor-general, and with him Morton expected soon to depart.
Cradock’s letter, enclosing the order of the Council for the return of the charter, reached Boston in July. Winthrop was then no longer governor, having been displaced by Dudley at the previous May election. As is well known to all students of New England history, the famous parchment, still in the office of the secretary of the Puritan Commonwealth, was not sent back.[129] It is unnecessary, however, to here repeat the story of the struggle over it. Presently Governor Edward Winslow of Plymouth was despatched to England, as the joint agent of the two colonies, to look after their endangered interests. He reached London in the autumn of 1634, bringing with him an evasive reply to the demand contained in Cradock’s letter.
Winslow sailed in the middle or latter part of July, and a few days later, on the 4th of August,[130] Jeffreys came over from Wessagusset to Boston, bringing to Winthrop the letter which he had shortly before received from Morton. It was the first intimation the magistrates had of the Commission and of the appointment of a governor-general. Winthrop communicated the news to Dudley and the other members of the Council, and to some of the ministers; and, doubtless, for a time they all nursed an anxious hope that the exaggerations in the letter were even greater than they really were. The General Court met on the 25th of August. While it was still in session, vessels arrived bringing tidings which dispelled all doubt, and confirmed everything material that Morton had said. He whom the magistrates had so ignominiously punished, and so contemptuously driven away, was evidently in a position to know what those in authority intended. It began to be evident that the Massachusetts magistrates had underestimated an opponent.
A full copy of the Order in Council establishing the board of Lords Commissioners of Plantations, was now received, and the colonists were further advised, through their private letters, that ships were being furnished, and soldiers gotten ready for embarkation in them. It was given out that these troops and vessels were intended for Virginia, whither a new governor was about to be sent; but Winthrop wrote that in Massachusetts the preparation was “suspected to be against us, to compel us by force to receive a new governor, and the discipline of the church of England, and the laws of the commissioners.[131]”
The answer which best expressed the spirit of the colony, in reply to Laud’s threats, was now found, not in the missive which Winslow had in charge, but in the act of Morton’s old oppressor, Endicott, when a few weeks later at Salem he cut the red cross from the standard. It was an act, however, which seemed to indicate that there was more truth than Winthrop was disposed to admit in Gardiner and Morton’s charge that “the ministers and people did continually rail against the state, church and bishops.”[132] Six months of great alarm and strenuous preparation now ensued. Steps were taken to get together arms and ammunition, and defences were ordered at Dorchester and Charlestown, as well as at Castle Island. The magistrates were even empowered to impress laborers for the work. In January the ministers were summoned to Bolton, and the question formally submitted to them: “What ought we to do if a general governor should be sent out of England?” The reply was that “we ought not to accept him, but defend our lawful possessions if we are able.” In April a rumor of strange vessels hovering off Cape Ann threw the whole province into a tumult. It was supposed that Governor-general Gorges, with Morton in his train, was at the harbor’s mouth. It proved to be a false alarm, and after that the excitement seems gradually to have subsided.
This was in the spring of 1635. Meanwhile Winslow had reached England sometime early in the previous autumn. Though he had not brought the charter with him, its production does not seem to have been again immediately called for. He probably held out confident assurances that it would be sent over in the next vessel, as soon as the General Court met; but it is also probable that, in view of the course which had now been decided upon, an examination of it was no longer deemed necessary. The ensuing spring, that of 1635, had been fixed upon by Gorges and Mason as the time for decisive action. The charter was then to be vacated, and Gorges was to go out to New England with a force sufficient to compel obedience.