The New English Canaan of Thomas Morton with Introductory Matter and Notes. Thomas MortonЧитать онлайн книгу.
of Hamilton and the Earls of Arundel, Carlisle and Sterling, royal proprietors, were all at work together to bring about the destruction of an infant colony. When, however, it came to accomplishing anything in a practical way, it grew apparent by degrees that behind all this tremendous display of machinery there was nothing but Sir Ferdinando Gorges—an active-minded, adventurous soldier, skilled in Court ways, persistent and full of resource, but with small means of his own, and no faculty of obtaining means from others. When it became therefore a question of real action, calling for the sinews of war, the movement flopped dead in 1635, just as it had stopped in 1623. In 1635 it is true, Gorges had the assistance of Captain John Mason, who was an energetic man with means at his command, and it was through him that a ship was to be provided.[139] The building of this ship, however, without doubt strained to the utmost the resources of all concerned; and when, in launching, it suffered a mishap, again probably from insufficient means, they could not make the damage good. The royal exchequer was then as empty as Gorges’s own purse. The King was living on benevolences, and on fines levied upon the great nobles for encroachments on the royal forests. The writs to collect ship-money were issued in this very year. The next year public offices were sold. Under these circumstances no assistance could for the present be looked for from Charles or Laud. As for the noble associates, among whom the New England coast had just been parcelled out, while perfectly willing to accept great domains in America, they would venture nothing more to take actual possession of them in 1635 than they had ventured in 1623. Nothing at all was to be obtained from that quarter. Speaking of Gorges and Mason, and the failure of their plans at this time, Winthrop wrote, “The Lord frustrated their design.” This was the pious way of putting it. In point of fact, however, the real safety of Massachusetts now depended on more homely and every-day considerations. Gorges and Mason could not raise the money absolutely necessary to carry their design out.
Nevertheless, though this delay was disappointing, there was no occasion for despair. Things moved slowly; that was all. Gorges represented the New England part of that royal system which was to stand or fall as a whole. In the spring and summer of 1635 it looked very much as if it was destined to stand. There was then no thought of a parliament at Court, or expectation of one among the patriots. The crown lawyers were hunting up precedents which would enable the King to levy taxes to suit himself. Wentworth had brought Ireland into a state of perfect subjection. Laud was supreme in England. The prospects for “Thorough” were never so good. If “Thorough” prevailed in England it would in Massachusetts. There could be no doubt of that. Meanwhile, though lack of ready means had put it out of Gorges’s power to go to New England at once, there was no break or delay in legal proceedings. In June, 1635, the attorney-general filed in the King’s Bench a writ of quo warranto against the Massachusetts Bay Company. This was the work which Thomas Morton had a month before been “entertained to prosecute,” and the promptness of the attorney-general would seem to indicate that on Morton’s part at least there was no failure in activity. The plan was to set the charter aside, not because of any abuse of the powers lawfully conferred in it, but on the ground that it was void ab initio. Every title to land held under it would thus be vitiated. In answer to the summons some of the original associates came in and pleaded, while others made default. Cradock made default. In his case, therefore, judgment was given at the Michaelmas, or September term, 1635, and the charter was declared void, all the franchises conveyed in it being resumed by the King.[140] This portion of the legal work in hand, therefore, that more particularly entrusted to Morton, seems to have been promptly and efficiently done. As respects the patents for the domains granted under the last partition, things do not seem to have moved so rapidly, for towards the close of November a meeting of the associates of the now dissolved Council was held at the house of Lord Sterling, and a vote passed that steps should be taken to get patents to the individual patentees passed the seals as soon as possible. Morton was in fact reminded of his duties.
A heavy blow was however impending over Gorges. He himself was now an elderly man, verging close upon seventy years.[141] He could not have been as active and as energetic as he once had been, and even his sanguine disposition must have felt the usual depressing influence of hope long deferred. Mason had of late been the mainstay of his enterprise. Only a year before, that resolute man had sent out a large expedition, numbering some seventy men, to Piscataqua, and he was contemplating extensive explorations towards Lake Champlain. Morton eulogized him as a “very good Commonwealth’s man, a true foster-father and lover of virtue,”[142] and Winthrop referred to him as “the chief mover in all the attempts against us.”[143] In December, 1635, Mason died,[144] and not improbably it was the anticipation of his death which led to that meeting of the Council at which the speedy issuing of the individual patents was urged. However this may be, the loss of Mason seems to have been fatal to Gorges’s hopes; it was the lopping off of the right arm of his undertakings. From that time forward there was obviously no source from which he could hope to get the money necessary to enable him to effect anything, except the royal treasury. Of this, for two or three years yet, until the Scotch troubles destroyed the last chance of the success of the ship-money scheme, there seemed a very good prospect. Gorges, however, could not afford to wait. His remaining time was short. Accordingly, after Mason’s death, little is heard of him or of the Lords Commissioners.
During the next seven years, consequently, the traces of Morton are few. There is a passing glimpse obtained of him in March, 1636, through a letter from Cradock to Winthrop,[145] from which it appears he was then in London and actively scheming against the Massachusetts Company. He would seem at this time to have been in the pay of one George Cleaves, a man of some importance and subsequently quite prominent in the early history of Maine. Cleaves apparently had proposed some scheme to Cradock touching the Massachusetts Company, and Morton came to see him about it. Thereupon Cradock says, “I having no desire to speak with Morton alone put him off a turn or two on the exchange, till I found Mr. Pierce,” etc. Further on in the same letter he speaks of his “greyffe and disdayne” at the abuse heaped on the Company, and of the “heavey burdens, there lode on me by T. M.;” and adds, “God forgive him that is the cause of it.”
Early in 1637, and in consequence probably of the quo warranto proceedings, a commission of some sort would appear to have been granted to certain persons in New England for the government of that country.[146] How or under what circumstances this was obtained is nowhere told. There is a mystery about it. Gorges afterwards assured Winthrop that he knew nothing of it,[147] and only a copy ever reached America, the original, Winthrop says, being “staid at the seal for want of paying the fees.” He further says that Cleaves procured this commission, as also a sort of patent, or, as he calls it, “a protection under the privy signet for searching out the great lake of Iracoyce.” From all this it would appear that the whole thing was some impotent and inconsequential move on the part of Morton; for not only does Winthrop say that the document was “staid at the seal,” but Cradock wrote that the matter in reference to which Morton wanted to see him, on behalf of Cleaves, related to paying the charge “in taking out somewhat under the seale.” Gorges speaks of Morton as being at that time Cleaves’s agent; and in the New Canaan, which either had just been published or was then in the press, there is a glowing account of the “great lake Erocoise,” and its boundless wealth of beaver,[148] to which apparently the imaginative author had directed Cleaves’s attention sufficiently to induce him to take out the “protection” which Winthrop alludes to.
The year 1637 was the turning-period in the fortunes of King Charles and of Archbishop Laud, and consequently of Gorges and Morton. Up to that time everything had gone sufficiently well, if not in Massachusetts, at least in England, Ireland, and even Scotland. Now, however, the system began to break down; giving way first, as would naturally enough be the case, at its weakest point. This was in Scotland, where the attempt to force Episcopacy on the people resulted in the famous “stony Sabbath” on the 23d of July. The New Canaan was probably going through the press during the deceitful period of profound calm which preceded that eventful day. Though now published, there is strong internal evidence that the book was written in 1634. Not only does this appear from the extract from its last page in the letter to Jeffreys, already referred to,[149] but in another place[150] there is reference to the expedition of Henry Josselyn for the more complete discovery of Lake Champlain, which is mentioned as then in preparation. Henry Josselyn left England about the time Morton was writing to Jeffreys, or a little earlier,