The New English Canaan of Thomas Morton with Introductory Matter and Notes. Thomas MortonЧитать онлайн книгу.
which threatened the extinction of the New England settlements.[43] Fifteen years later, when he wrote the New Canaan, Morton was a dependent of Gorges. The fact that he had dealt in fire-arms, in contemptuous defiance of the proclamation, was openly charged against him. He did deny that he had sold the savages spirits. These, he said, were the life of trade; the Indians would “pawn their wits” for them, but these he would never let them have. In the matter of fire-arms, however, he preserved a discreet and significant silence. He made no more allusion to them than he did to Wollaston or his partners at Merry-Mount.
In the whole record of the early Plymouth settlement, from the first skirmish with the Cape Cod savages, in December, 1620, to the Wessagusset killing, there is no mention of a gun being seen in an Indian’s hands. On the contrary, the savages stood in mortal terror of fire-arms. But now at last it seemed as if Morton was about not only to put guns in their hands, but to instruct them in their use.
“This Morton,” says Bradford, “having thus taught them the use of pieces, he sold them all he could spare; and he and his consorts determined to send for many out of England, and had by some of the ships sent for above a score. The which being known, and his neighbors meeting the Indians in the woods armed with guns in this sort, it was a terror unto them, who lived straglingly, and were of no strength in any place. And other places (though more remote) saw this mischief would quickly spread over all, if not prevented. Besides, they saw they should keep no servants, for Morton would entertain any, how vile soever, and all the scum of the country, or any discontents, would flock to him from all places, if this nest was not broken; and they should stand in more fear of their lives and goods (in short time) from this wicked and debauched crew than from the savages themselves.”[44]
Thus, in the only branches of trade the country then afforded, Morton was not only pressing all the other settlers hard, but he was pressing them in an unfair way. If the savages could exchange their furs for guns, they would not exchange them for anything else. Those not prepared to give guns might withdraw from the market. The business, too, conducted in this way, was a most profitable one. Morton says that in the course of five years one of his servants was thought to have accumulated, in the trade in beaver skins, no less than a thousand pounds;[45] and a thousand pounds in 1635 was more than the equivalent of ten thousand now. This statement was undoubtedly an exaggeration; yet it is evident that at even ten shillings a pound in England, which Morton gives as the current price, though Bradford says he never knew it less than fourteen, beaver skins, which cost little or nothing in America, yielded a large profit. As Morton expressed it, his plantation “beganne to come forward.”[46] When, in 1625, the Plymouth people found their way up into Maine,[47] and first opened a trade with the savages there, Morton was not slow in following them. In 1628 they established a permanent station on the Kennebec,[48] yet apparently as early at least as 1627, if not in 1626, Morton had forestalled them there, and hindered them of a season’s furs.[49]
The injury done to the other settlers in a trading point of view, however, serious as it unquestionably was, became insignificant in comparison with the consequences which must result to them from the presence on the coast of such a resort as Merry-Mount. The region was vast, and in it there was no pretence of any government. It was the yearly rendezvous of a rough and lawless class of men, only one step removed from freebooters, who cared for nothing except immediate gain. Once let such a gathering-place as that of which Morton was now head become fixed and known, and soon it would develop into a nest of pirates. Of this there could be no doubt; the Plymouth people had good cause for the alarm which Bradford expressed. It mattered not whether Morton realized the consequences of what he was doing, or failed to realize them; the result would be the same.
It gradually, therefore, became apparent to all those dwelling along the coast, from the borders of Maine to Cape Cod, that either the growing nuisance at Merry-Mount must be abated, or they would have to leave the country. The course to be pursued in regard to it was, however, not equally clear. The number of the settlements along the coast had considerably increased since Wollaston’s arrival.[50] The Hiltons and David Thomson had established themselves at Dover Neck and Piscataqua as early as 1623; and sometime in 1625 apparently, Thomson, bringing with him his young wife and a servant or two, had moved down into Boston Bay, and established himself, only a mile or two away from Mount Wollaston, on the island which still bears his name. He had died a little while after, and in 1628 his widow was living there alone, with one child and some servants. In 1625 or 1626 the Wessagusset settlement had divided. Those of Gorges’s following who remained there had never been wholly satisfied. It was no place for trade. Accordingly Blackstone, Maverick and Walford, the two last being married and taking their wives with them, had moved across the bay, and established themselves respectively at Shawmut or Boston, at Noddle’s Island or East Boston, and at Mishawum or Charlestown. Jeffreys, Bursley and some others had remained at Wessagusset, and were Morton’s neighbors at that place, whom he says he was in the custom of visiting from time to time, “to have the benefit of company.”[51] At Hull, already known by that name,[52] there were the Grays and a few other settlers. These had been joined by Lyford and Oldham and their friends, when the latter were expelled from Plymouth in the spring of 1625; but the next year, finding the place probably an uninviting one, Lyford had crossed over to Cape Ann, and thence a year later passed on to Virginia. Oldham still remained at Nantasket.
Such were those neighbors of Morton, the chiefs of the straggling plantations, referred to by Bradford as being of “no strength in any place.” Together they may possibly have numbered from fifty to an hundred souls. The Plymouth settlement was, comparatively speaking, organized and numerous, consisting as it did of some two hundred persons, dwelling in about forty houses, which were protected by a stockade of nearly half a mile in length. Nevertheless even there, by the summer of 1627, the alarm at the increase of fire-arms in the hands of the savages began to be very great. They had spread “both north and south all the land over,”[53] and it was computed that the savages now possessed at least sixty pieces. One trader alone, it was reported, had sold them a score of guns and an hundred weight of ammunition. Bradford thus takes up the story:—
“So sundry of the chiefs of the straggling plantations, meeting together, agreed by mutual consent, to solicit those of Plymouth, (who were then of more strength than them all,) to join with them to prevent the further growth of this mischief, and suppress Morton and his consorts before they grew to further head and strength. Those that joined in this action, (and after contributed to the charge of sending him to England,) were from Piscataqua, Naumkeag, Winnisimmet, Wessagusset, Nantasket, and other places where any English were seated. Those of Plymouth being thus sought to by their messengers and letters, and weighing both their reasons and the common danger, were willing to afford them their help, though themselves had least cause of fear or hurt. So, to be short, they first resolved jointly to write to him, and, in a friendly and neighborly way, to admonish him to forbear these courses; and sent a messenger with their letters to bring his answer. But he was so high as he scorned all advice, and asked—Who had to do with him?—he had and would trade pieces with the Indians in despite of all: with many other scurrilous terms full of disdain.
“They sent to him a second time, and bade him be better advised, and more temperate in his terms, for the country could not bear the injury he did; it was against their common safety, and against the King’s proclamation. He answered in high terms, as before; and that the King’s proclamation was no law: demanding, what penalty was upon it? It was answered, more than he could bear, his Majesty’s displeasure. But insolently he persisted, and said the King was dead, and his displeasure with him; and many the like things; and threatened, withal, that if any came to molest him, let them look to themselves; for he would prepare for them.”[54]
However it may have been with the position he took as a matter of public policy, Morton at least showed himself in this dispute better versed in the law of England than those who admonished him. On the first of the two points made by him he was clearly right. King James’s proclamation was not law. This had been definitely decided more than fifteen years before, when in 1610, in a case referred to all the judges, Lord Coke, in reporting their decision, had stated on his own authority that “the King cannot create any offence, by his prohibition or proclamation, which was not an offence before, for that was to change the law, and to make an offence, which