cott, play any part in later New England history. The former had already been treasurer of the fishing company at Cape Ann, and he subsequently held office under the Massachusetts Company, both in England and in the colony itself. John Endicott at once took a patentees. prominent place in the new undertaking, and to the end of his life he stood in the foremost rank of New England statesmen, figuring at every stage as the embodiment of all that was narrowest and sternest in Puritanism. The For the present this grant did no more than establish a private partnership. The partners might entertain and acknowledge among themselves political designs, but in the eyes of the world there was nothing to distinguish their scheme from those of Gorges or Weston. Endicott sent ou'. In the face of the grant to Robert Gorges it was clear that the title of the Company to its newly acquired lands might at any time be challenged. Measures were at once taken to meet this danger. Endicott was sent out with sixty men to make good his claim by occupation. The small station at Salem, which had been strengthened in the previous year by the exportation of twelve cattle, served as a nucleus for the new settlement, and Endicott was sent out with men enough to bring the total number up to sixty. If any specific instructions were given to Endicott they are no longer extant, nor is there anything to show how far the little community was entrusted with the management of its own affairs. Later documents suggest that Endicott's chief mission was to make preparations for a further instalment of settlers, and to send home a sample of what the country could produce. He was to ship a freight of beaver skins and fish, or, failing those, of timber, with specimens of any herbs that might be use 1 Mr. Haven in Arch. Am. vol. iii. p. 50. 3 Ib. 1629 TROUBLE WITH MORTON. 119 ful as dyes or for medicine.1 A very full inventory is extant of the goods with which he was supplied, and the entry of five hundred red caps makes one suppose that some trade with the natives was intended, though no undertaking of the kind is recorded.2 Trouble with Mor The new-comers seem to have been at first ill received. This was in all likelihood due to the influence of Morton, who, through the leniency ton. or unscrupulousness of Allerton, had now returned to New England. His own account of the matter is too confused and metaphorical to be of much value. He seems to have objected, firstly to Endicott's claim of civil authority, and then to his attempt to enforce a system of joint trade. On the latter point he apparently gained his way. He tells with satisfaction how he made six or seven for one,' while the trade of the Company under Captain Littleworth,' as he calls Endicott, only brought loss. On this he founds an accusation of dishonesty against Endicott; but if Morton sold ammunition and spirits to the natives without scruple, the matter is easily explained. The dispute with the old settlers was settled, we are expressly told, by the moderation and forbearance of Conant, who thus for the second time played the part of a peacemaker. For the present Morton himself escaped punishment. But Merrymount was no longer suffered to be a school of riot and debauchery. Morton's associates there had been guilty of that crowning outrage on Puritan decency, the setting up of a maypole. Endicott hewed down the infelix arbor, branded the seat of iniquity with the name of Mount Dagon, and solemnly admonished its occupants to look that there should be better walking.' 6 1 Letter from Cradock to Endicott (Arch. Am. vol. iii. p. 8). 2 Ib. p. 6. 4 New English Canaan, bk. iii. ch. 21. 5 Hubbard, p. 109. 3 Bradford, p. 167. 6 Bradford, p. 160 A royal charter Meanwhile the partners in England were taking steps to strengthen their legal position. The six original patentees admitted more persons into their obtained. partnership. This change was accompanied by one still more serious. The promoters of the colony were no longer content to be a mere private company for trade. The authority of the Crown was to be called in to make good any flaw which might exist in their territorial title. In March 1629 a royal charter was obtained, constituting a legal corporation, under the title of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. This corporation were to elect annually a Governor, DeputyGovernor, and eighteen Assistants, who were to hold monthly meetings. The appointment of eighteen Assistants shows that the Company was to be enlarged considerably beyond its present numbers. General meetings were to be held four times a year. The members had power to elect necessary officers, and to defend their own territory by force against invasion or attack. The Governor and Assistants might, if they thought fit, administer the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to members of the Company. It is not unlikely that this clause may have been inserted to meet the difficulty which had lately arisen in the case of Lord Baltimore, owing to the absence of any such provision in the Virginia charter.2 In anticipation of a future want the grantees resisted the insertion of any condition which should fix the government of the Company in England. Winthrop explicitly states that the advisers of the Crown had originally imposed such a condition, but that the patentees succeeded, not without difficulty, in freeing 'The charter is in the Colonial Papers. It is also given in Hazard's Collection, vol. i. p. 239. * See Virginia, &c., p. 270. 29 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMPANY. 121 emselves from it. That fact is a full answer to ose who held that in transferring the government to merica the patentees broke faith with the Crown.2 he Company. The records of this corporation supply us with aple information as to the measures taken in establishceedings ing the new colony. The first Governor elected was Matthew Cradock, of whom little is known, save that he was a member of the Long Parliament. He does not appear to have even visited New England, and he soon steps aside to make way for more active, if not more zealous, promoters of the colony. Of the Assistants, the most important was Sir Richard Saltonstall. His stay in the colony only extended over one year, but during that time he seems to have taken a leading part in public affairs, and he became the founder of an important New England family. One of the first steps taken by the newly organized Company was to establish a government resident in the colony. This was to consist of a Governor, a Deputy-Governor, and twelve councillors, or, as they are usually called afterwards, Assistants. Of these, seven were to be named by the Company, three more chosen by these seven and the Governor, and the remaining three appointed by the old planters,' that is to say, by those independent settlers whom Endicott had found already established on the territory of the Company under grants from the 1 This is stated by Winthrop in a pamphlet written in 1644, and published in an appendix to his life, vol. ii. p. 443. 2 The most noteworthy upholder of this view is the late Mr. Oliver, in that remarkable book, The Puritan Commonwealth, published in 1856. Mr. Oliver was a Boston lawyer, and a zealous churchman. Provoked by the extravagant and unreasonable praise so often bestowed on the founders of Massachusetts, he has subjected their actions to a merciless scrutiny, always acute and sometimes just, but more often carried out in the spirit of a party advocate. His work is of no small value to the student of New England history as the pleading of an advocatus diaboli, and as a set-off against the too frequent adulations of American writers. 3 Mr. Haven gives short biographical sketches of Cradock and Saltonstall (Arch. Am. vol. iii. pp. 56, 66). council of New England. The Governor, DeputyGovernor, and Council were empowered to appoint minor officers and to enact such laws as they might deem needful for the colony, with the customary reservation that they were not to be at variance with the laws of the realm. It is worth noticing that the local government thus established is formally styled an absolute government, and that no provision is made for any control to be exercised by the Company, either over legislation or over the appointment of officers. It would seem as though the functions of the Company were to be confined to managing the trade and the material welfare of the settlement. Indeed, one may believe that when these provisions were framed some at least of the members must have contemplated the coming change, whereby the Company ceased to exist as a separate corporation and became merged in the legislature of the colony. land tenure. Land was allotted on a system like that adopted by the Virginia Company. Each shareholder was to have System of two hundred acres for every fifty pounds that he had invested. If he settled in the colony he was to have fifty more for himself and fifty for each member of his family. Emigrants who were not shareholders were to have an allotment of fifty acres, with the same quantity for each servant exported. The Governor and Council had also power to grant a further quantity to such emigrants according to their charge and quality.' A proposal was made and favourably entertained that all land granted to those who were not shareholders should be burdened with certain hereditary services, but this scheme fell to the ground.2 At the same time provisions were made for the spiritual needs of the settlers. Early in 1629 three 1 Young, M. C., p. 192. 2 The scheme for tenures by service is proposed in the instructions to Endicott (Arch. Am. vol. iii. p. 104). |