The New English Canaan of Thomas Morton with Introductory Matter and Notes. Thomas MortonЧитать онлайн книгу.
not appear how long Morton now remained at Plymouth. It could not, however, have been more than a few weeks before Allerton, who himself went back to England the same season, was, as Bradford puts it, “caused to pack him away.” He then returned to Mount Wollaston, where he seems to have found a remnant of his old company—apparently the more modest of them and such as had looked to their better walking. Hardly, however, had he well gotten back when he was in trouble with Endicott. The first difficulty arose out of the jealousy which existed between the “old planters,” as they were called, and those who belonged to the Massachusetts Company. The old planters were the very men who had associated themselves, eighteen months before, to bring about the suppression of the establishment at Mount Wollaston. Now they also were beginning to feel the pressure of authority, and they did not like it. In their helpless anger they even spoke of themselves as “slaves” of the new Company.[83] They could no longer plant what they chose or trade with whom they pleased.
On these points Endicott had explicit instructions. They were contained in the letters of Cradock of April 17 and May 28, 1629, which are to be found in Young’s Chronicles of Massachusetts, and contain the policy of the company, set forth in clear vigorous English. In pursuance of those instructions, Endicott seems to have summoned all the old planters dwelling within the limits of the patent to meet in a General Court at Salem, sometime in the latter part of 1629. There he doubtless advised them as to the policy which the Company intended to pursue; and Morton says that he then tendered all present for signature certain articles which he and the Rev. Samuel Skelton had drawn up together. The essence of those articles was that in all causes, ecclesiastical as well as political, the tenor of God’s word should be followed.[84] The alternative was banishment.
Morton claims that he alone of those present refused to put his hand to this paper, insisting that a proviso should first be added in these words, “So as nothing be done contrary or repugnant to the laws of the Kingdom of England.” These are almost the exact words of King Charles’s charter;[85] and it would seem as though Morton, in proposing them, sought an opportunity to display his legal acumen. Whether his suggestion was adopted, and the articles modified accordingly, does not appear. It probably was, though the change was not one which Endicott would have looked upon with favor. If he assented to it he certainly did so grimly. The matter of regulating the trade in beaver skins was next brought up. This was intended to be a Company monopoly, to meet the charge of providing churches and forts.[86] It was accordingly proposed that a sort of general partnership for the term of one year should be effected to carry it on. Morton says that on this matter also he stood out, and it seems altogether probable that he did. It is safe to say that he was there to make whatever trouble he could. On the other hand it was not possible for Endicott to mistake his instructions. They were as plain as words could make them. He was to see to it that “none be partakers of [the Company’s] privileges and profits, but such as be peaceable men, and of honest life and conversation, and desirous to live amongst us, and conform themselves to good order and government.” And further, if any factious spirit developed itself he was enjoined “to suppress a mischief before it take too great a head … which, if it may be done by a temperate course, we much desire it, though with some inconvenience, so as our government and privileges be not brought in contempt. … But if necessity require a more severe course, when fair means will not prevail, we pray you to deal as in your discretions you shall think fittest.” Such instructions as these, in Endicott’s hands to execute, boded ill for Morton.
Matters soon came to a crisis. Morton paid no regard to the Company’s trade regulations. The presumption is that he was emboldened to take the course he now did by the belief that he would find support in England. He unquestionably was informed as to all the details of the trouble between the Massachusetts Company and the Council for New England, and knew that Oldham, whom he by the way speaks of as “a mad Jack in his mood,”[87] held a grant from John Gorges, and was straining every nerve to come out and take adverse possession of the territory covered by it. He probably hoped, day by day, to see Oldham appear at the head of a Gorges expedition. There is reason to suppose that he was himself at this time an agent of Gorges—that, indeed, he had come back to New England as such, and was playing a part very much like that of a spy. He was certainly in such correspondence with Sir Ferdinando as the means of communication permitted, and the confidant of his plans.[88]
When, therefore, he offered all the opposition to Endicott which he dared, and thwarted him so far as he could, he was not acting for himself alone. He represented, in a degree at least, what in England was a powerful combination. Accordingly, with an over-confidence in the result born of his sanguine faith in the power and influence of his patron, he now seems to have gone back to the less objectionable of his old courses. He did not renew the trade in fire-arms and ammunition, for he probably had none to spare, and experience had taught him how dangerous it was. He did, however, deal with the savages as he saw fit, and on his own account, openly expressing his contempt for Endicott’s authority, and doing all he could to excite the jealousy and discontent of the “old planters.”[89] His own profits at this time were, he says, six and seven fold.
This state of things could not continue. Accordingly, as the year drew to a close, Endicott made an effort to arrest him. Morton, however, was now on his guard. Getting wind of what was intended, he concealed his ammunition and most necessary goods in the forest; and, when the messengers, sent across the bay to seize him, landed on the beach at the foot of Mount Wollaston, he was nowhere to be found. He says that they ransacked his house, and took from it all the provender they could find; but when they were gone he replenished his supplies with the aid of his gun, and “did but deride Captain Littleworth, that made his servants snap shorte in a country so much abounding with plenty of foode for an industrious man.” This happened about Christmas, 1629.[90]
Could Endicott now have laid hands upon him there can be little room for doubt that Morton would have been summarily dealt with; but for the present the deputy-governor’s attention was otherwise occupied. This was that winter of 1629–30, the famine and sickness of which came so near to bringing the Salem settlement to a premature end. During that struggle for existence the magistrate had no time to attend to Morton’s case. But he was not the man to forget it.
With the following summer the great migration, which was to fix the character of New England, began. Instead of a vessel fitted out for Oldham under the patronage of Gorges, the Mary & John, chartered by the Massachusetts Company and having on board 140 passengers from the West of England, anchored off Hull on the 30th of May. A fortnight later Governor Winthrop reached Salem, and on the 17th of June he also came into Boston Harbor; and Morton, from Mount Wollaston, must have watched his vessel with anxious eyes as, in full view from his house, it made its way up the channel to the mouth of the Mystic. He must also have realized that its appearance in those waters boded him no good.
In a few days more the whole fleet, numbering twelve sail in all, was at anchor off Charlestown, and the work of discharging passengers was going actively on. Of these there were nearly a thousand;[91] and now the busy and fatal summer experience of 1630 was fairly entered upon.
For a few weeks longer Morton continued to live undisturbed at Mount Wollaston. The confusion and bustle of landing, and afterwards the terror and sense of bereavement which followed hard on pestilence, protected him. It was not until the 23d of August, or the present 2d of September, that the magistrates held any formal session. They then met at the great house at Charlestown,[92] as it would seem, Winthrop, Dudley, Saltonstall, Pynchon, Bradstreet and others being present. After some more important business had been disposed of, “It was ordered, that Morton, of Mount Woolison, should presently be sent for by processe.”[93] Of the circumstances of his arrest under the warrant thus issued Morton has given no account. Apparently he felt it was useless to try to evade the messengers, and resistance was wholly out of the question. At the next session of the magistrates, held two weeks later, on what would now be the 17th of September, he was formally arraigned. In addition to those already named as being at the earlier meeting, Endicott was now present. He had probably come down from Salem to give his personal attention to Morton’s case. It must from the outset have been apparent to the prisoner that the tribunal before which he stood was one from which he had nothing to hope. The proceedings were in fact summary. It would seem, from his own account of them,[94] that he