Boston City (part 32 of 67)

The attractive scene for the artist is the interview between these two devoted missionaries to the Indians, who labored for them, each beyond the bounds of four-score years, representing the extremes and antagonisms of two creeds and policies in the method and aim of their work. Doubtless they conferred together as Christian gentlemen, perhaps on something in which they could accord, and oblivious of all that divided them. One loves to think of Eliot's humble cottage as thus graced. His Indian interpreter might have been crouching by the cheerful chimney; and one or more Indian youth, whom Eliot always had near him, might have looked on in wonder as the cassocked priest and the Puritan discussed the difficulties of the Indian tongues, in which both of them attained great skill, and accomplished their ministry as translators and preachers.

Eliot, in allowing and prompting his converts to ask questions, in order to make him sure that they understood his teachings, quickened in them a keen spirit of disputation and even casuistry. In the reports which he sent to

The Indians Of Eastern Massachusetts

England he often reveals some amusing illustrations of the acuteness and perplexity of the Indian intellect on the speculative and didactic themes of Calvinism. The excellent Gookin writes, " Divers of them had a faculty to frame hard and difficult questions, which Mr. ILliot did in a grave and Christian manner endeavor to resolve and answer to their satisfaction." Being told that they were the children, not of God, but of the Devil, they were naturally interested chiefly in the latter. They asked, -

" Whether y Devil or man was made first? Whether there might not be something, if only a little, gained by praying to y* Devil? Why does not God, who has full power, V\\\ y* Devil that makes all men so bad ? If God made Hell in one of the - six days,' why did he make it before Adam had sinned ? If all y* world be burned up, where shall Hell be then ? Are all y' Indians who have died now in Hell, while only we are in y* way of getting to Heaven ? Why does not God give all men good hearts, that they may be good? Whither do dying little children go, seeing that they have not sinned?" - "This question [says Eliot] gave occasion to teach them more fully original sin and the damned state of all men. I could give them no further comfort than that, when God elects the parents, he elects their seed also." " If a man should be inclosed in ux>n a foot thick, and thrown into the fire, how would his soul get out?"

There is a sweet beauty in one of the questions put by a pupil of natural religion. "Can one be saved by reading y* Book of y* Creature?" [Nature.] Eliot says, " This question was made when I taught them that God gave us two Bookes, and that in y* Booke of y* Creature every creature was a word or sentence."

The good Apostle records some that he calls " weak questions."' Among these is tlie following : " What shall be in y* roome of y* world when it is burnt up ? " This he depreciates as a " woman's question," though it was not put by a woman. Only once does he record an instance .of trifling: "We had this year a malignant, drunken Indian, that, to cast some reproach as wee feared upon this way, boldly pronounced this question : * Mr. Eliot, who made Sack? Who made Sack? * ("The word for all strong drinks.] He was presently snibbed [snubbed?] by y* other Indians calling it a pappoose question, and seriously and gravely answered not so much to his question as to his spirit, which hath cooled his boldness ever since." The questioner was a sad reprobate. He stole, killed, and skinned a young cow, which he had the eflrontcry to pass ofl" on President Dunster as a " moose."

In deferring the entrance of his converts on a " Church Estate " till they were fully trained and disciplined, Eliot had to keep in view the coldness, jealousy, and still unreconciled opposition of many of his Puritan friends, who would be sadly afl'rontcd by any parody upon, or any debasement of the dignity of, their cherished institutions. But the day approached at last In prcpsiration for it Eliot painfully put some of his most promising subjects through the same process of " relation," " confession," and revealing of private religious " experience " which was required of members of his own parish as a requisite to full church communion. A half dozen of these " exercises ** he translated, wrote down, and submitted to his clerical brethren. Further '' exercises " of the sort were called forth on a solemn Fast Day at Natick, Oct. l6, 1652.. Still more '' confessions " were heard at a great meeting of the Commissioners of the United Colonies at Roxbury in July 1654. Eliot said of some of his subjects, '* We know y* profession of very many of them is but a meere paint, and their best graces nothing but meere flashes and pangs." ** My desire is to be true to Christ, to their soules, and to y* churches." The listening to the confessions and to their interpretation was very tedious. " The work, was long-som considering y* inlargement of spirit God gave some of them." Some of the English visitors '* whispered and went out" Further delays occurred, and it was not till 1660 that a church of natives after the Puritan pattern was instituted at Natick.

The marvellous accomplishment in Eliot's missionary work, - the translation of the entire Scriptures into the Indian tongue, - so far from having been in his view when he began his labors, had been by him then regarded and pronounced an impossible task. The utmost he had hoped for was the translation of some parts of the Bible and of a few simple manuals. It is to be remembered that other conditions in his circumstances disabled him from the singleness of devotion enjoyed by a Jesuit priest. He was dependent for his support of himself and a family mainly on his salary as a hard-working pastor in his own church. Besides a wife and a daughter, he had five sons, all of whom he trained for Harvard College. One of these died in his course ; the other four became preachers. Grammars and dictionaries of some of the native languages had been published in Spanish America a century before Eliot began his labors. The English society cautioned him against putting any Scripture into print until he felt sure of his mastery of the Indian tongue. . A reviewer of Eliot's linguistic labors cannot repress the wish that he might have had the benefit and used the facilities of the modern art of phonography. It was found that while many of the ICnglish teachers spoke in Indian with great facility, in writing sentences of it they would use much diversity in the spelling and in the number of letters, and especially of consonants, guided, as they were, simply by the sound as they caught the gutturals and grunts of the natives. Thus on pages of the same book we find the two words aukooks and okkukes, as the name of an Indian stone kettle. Cotton Mather thought that some Indian words had been lengthening themselves out ever since the confusion of tongues at Babel. To us it seems as if an Indian root-word started little and compact, like one of their own pappooses, and then grew at either extremity, thickened in the middle, extended in shape and proportion in each limb, member, and feature, and was completed with a feathered head-knot. We might copy here some of their words, each of more than forty letters. The Jesuit Biard, in Acadia, says he was satisfied with translating into Indian, *' y Lord's Prayer, y* Salutation of y* Virgin, y* Commandments of God and of y* Church, with a short explanation of y* Sacraments, and some Prayers, for this is all y* Theology they need." But Eliot, true to the Puritan idea that the Bible ought to be to all Christians what the *' Church " is to the Romanists, finally essayed a complete translation of both Testaments. So the patriarchal history, the wars in Canaan, the Levitical institution, the Tabernacle and Temple worship, the genealogical tables of Kings and Chronicles, and the technical arguments of the Epistles took their equal places with the Psalms of penitence and aspiration and of the sweet Benedictions and Parables of Christ. Eliot also made Indian catechisms and primers and a few devotional tracts, and put some psalms into Indian in metre. The restored King renewed the charter of the Parliamentary Corporation in aid of the Indian work which furnished type, paper, printer, and funds for the publication of the Indian Bible. The New Testament appeared Sept. 5, 1661, the Old in 1663, and a copy, with a somewhat fulsome dedication, was richly bound and sent to Charles II. as the first European sovereign who ever received such a work with such " a superlative lustre " upon it from his subjects. As the book will be the appropriate matter for treatment in another place in this Memorial History, nothing more need be said about it here.* It has now, in the score or more of copies of it which alone are extant, held at lofty valuations, but little other use than as the sight of it yields a sacramental power as a monument of holy - and must we say of wasted ? - toil. The reader may recall with quite other reflections the beautiful passage in Hallam, as he notices the publication of the Latin or Mazarin Bible, " the earliest printed book, properly so called ** : " We may see in imagination this venerable and splendid volume leading up the crowded myriads of its followers, and imploring, as it were, a blessing on the new art, by dedicating its first fruits to the service of Heaven." *

What would have been the later working and the continuous and final results of the experiment tried among the Massachusetts Indians, had it been left to a peaceful development, is certainly a question of interest. It would find different answers according to the hopefulness or the distrust and misgivings which any one might bring to its consideration from his views of what has been or what might be the result of similar experiments. It is for us only to recognize the deplorable and disheartening catastrophe which brought such a grievous disappointment to Eliot and Gookin, with such bitter miseries on the " Praying Indians." That catastrophe was the outbreak of Philip's war, regarded by the whites as a conspiracy designed for, and at one interval darkly threatening, the utter extermination of the English settlements in New England.

The outbreak occurred when about thirty years had passed in the trial of Eliot's fond experiment There were then in the colony seven tolerably well-established villages of more or less civilized and Christianized

' [.Sec the chapter by Dr. Trumbull on " The instruction in part of Job Ncsutan, an Indian Indian Tongue and its IJteraturc." Eliot is servant in his household. - Ed.) said to have learned the language under the.. - Liieratun 0/ EuroM,\. 2\u natives, and seven others in a crude state working toward that condition. The majority of the residents in the former of these villages had in the main abandoned a vagabond life, and were trying to subsist on the produce of the soil, on simple handicraft, and on wages paid them for labor by the whites, with occasional hunting and fishing. These more advanced villages had their forts, their outlying fields, fenced or walled, their more cleanly and decent cabins, their native mechanics, teachers, petty magistrates, and preachers, with schools and meeting-houses. Fruit-trees and growing crops gave a show of thrift and culture to the scenes. The subjects of all this care were, however, jealously watched and restrained in ways often irritating to them. There were rogues, pilferers, and nuisances among them. Doubtless they committed much mischief, and were suspected of some of which they were innocent. The old feeling of distrust, antipathy, and opposition to the experiment still lingered and perhaps was even strengthened among many of the English, who regarded the so-called " Praying Indians" as more of a nuisance than were those in a state of Nature, - as in fact mere hankerers for the " loaves and fishes," hypocrites, weaklings, shiftless and dependent paupers. Gookin's hopeful narrative of success could not have been long circulated in England before he was compelled, in 1677, to write a desponding one, which, remaining in obscurity in private hands for more than a century and a half, was only put in print as an antiquarian document in 1836.^ Even at this day that later narrative will draw from the reader a pang of profound sympathy with the heart-agony of (he writer of it. The gentle, earnest truthfulness, the sweet forbearance, the passionless tone, and the minute and well-authenticated matter of the record give to it a touching pathos and power. The substance of it is a rehearsal of the jealousies, apprehensions, and severe measures on the part of the authorities of Massachusetts in their dealing with the " Praying Indians " during the horrors, barbarities, massacres, and burnings of the war instigated by the sachem of the Narragansetts with his red allies. Gookin and Eliot, perhaps over confidently, were persuaded that the Indians under their charge, in numbers, fidelity, and constancy, might have been most effective allies of the whites in the war, and that their settlements would be a wall of defence. But from the outbreak of that havoc of burning, pillage, and carnage, a panic-horror of dismay and awful apprehension seized many of the whites that the darkest treachery was working in the Indian towns among the viperous reptiles whom a weak sentimentaljty had warmed into life. Rumors filled the laden and melancholy air. A few certified occurrences there were which sufficed to warrant the darkest apprehensions. Tribes heretofore hostile to each other and harmless to the Engli.^h were drawn into Phih'p's league. Just enough of cases of treachery occurred to confirm the panic-frenzy about the " nourishing of vipers." A few Indians slipped away from the towns, and were charged with burning barns and outbuildings, when possibly this was the work of malignant strollers, of whom there were enough in the woods. In no single instance, however, was a crimin.il act proved against any Indian that had h.nd the confidence of Eliot or Gookin. Still, some of the natives under training, disgusted by restraint, or maddened by the jealousy and hate felt towards them, did leave the settlements ; and in the histories of some of our towns, published in recent years, we find antiquarian mention of one or more Natick, Grafton, or Marlborough Indians as seen among the files or cimbushcd parties of " the wily and hellish foe."

There was no reasoning with the people under this panic. Eliot and Gookm became victims of dark animosity among the people, - the life of the latter being threatened in the streets because he pleaded so beseechingly for confidence and mercy to his wards. Doubtless there would have been a popular rising if the Indians had been left in their towns.* The magistrates, to protect both parties, decided at first that the Indians should be moved from their distant settlements, and brought chiefly near the seaboard, - to Cambridge plains, Dorchester Neck, and Noddle's Island, and some to Concord and Mendon. This proposition only exasperated the residents in those towns, as it would but bring the dreaded scourge nearer. Finally it was decided to move the Indians from Natick, while their crops were ungathercd, to Deer Island, then covered with forest trees and used for the grazing of sheep. A sad scene was presented in the autumn of 1675 at the site of the United States Arsenal, on Charles river, then called "The Pines." The Natick Indians, who had been temporarily brought there on foot, by horses and carts for the sick and lame, after a comforting prayer by Eliot, were, by the serving tide at midnight on October 30th, shipped in three vessels for the Island, - ICIiot wrote, " patiently, humbly, and piously, without murmuring or complaining against y' English." They had a forlorn winter on the Island, which was bleak and cold and shelterless. Some of their corn was taken to them, " a boat and man was appointed to look after them." Their subsistence was largely from shell-fish. In the dire extremity of the continued war by Philip the English were finally induced to avail themselves of the service of a few of the " Praying Indians," for whose fidelity and constancy Eliot pledged himself. Indians again were used against Indians by the whites. The substitutes and allies, by their skill in forest strategy, proved of utmost use in the emergency. They stood nobly for their dubious benefactors, and some of them won special praise and rewards. They stripped and painted themselves, became Indians again like the enemy, tracked them to their lairs, brought home such captives as had not been massacred; and so far as they were traitors it was. to their own race. Gookin says that these red allies killed at least 400 of the

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The poor exiles from Natick were returned there in May, 1678. It was estimated at the time that about a fourth part of all the Indians in New England - those of Massachusetts being 3000 of that quarter - had been more or less influenced by civilization and Christianity; and that had these been in full league with Philip, the whites would have been exterminated. After the war the stated places for Indian church settlements were reduced to four, while there were other temporary stations. There were ten stations in Plymouth Colony, the same number in the Vineyard, and five in Nantucket President Mather, writing in 1687, said there were in New England six regular churches of baptized Indians, and eighteen assemblies of catechumens, twenty-four Indian preachers, and four English ministers who preached in Indian. A committee to visit Natick in 1698 reported a church there of seven men and three women (Indians), a native minister ordained by Eliot, 59 native men, 51 women, and 70 children. Up to 1733 all the town officers were Indians. The place was incorporated as an English town in 1762. In 1792 there was in it but a single Indian family. At a local celebration there in 1846, the two-hundredth anniversary of Eliot's first service, a girl of sixteen was the only known native descendant. A copy of Eliot's Indian Bible, obtained from the library of the Hon. John Pickering for the purpose, was then deposited among the town records.

No laments could deepen the melancholy in which this story finds its close. To moralize over it would be to open an inexhaustible theme. There were places in this State where feeble remnants of partially civilized natives remained a little longer than at Natick. But the longer they survived the more forlorn was the spectacle they presented, as poor pensioners and vagabonds, the virility of their native nobleness in the wild woods crushed in abject abasement before the white man, their veins mixed with African rather than with English blood. Humiliated, taciturn, retrospective, and with no longer heritage, name, or progeny, they preached more suggestive and impressive sermons than were ever preached to them. Yet, as if in memorial of motives or compunctions which those who have driven them from the soil once felt towards them, there are now vested charitable funds held for the benefit of those who are not here to receive it.

FROM her fortunate position at the head of the bay, and from her comparatively large population and wealth, Boston was brought into more intimate relations with the neighboring English, French, and Dutch colonies than were sustained by any other Massachusetts town. But these relations arose mainly from the circumstance that the people of the town were led to engage in trade with the other colonies, partly by the necessity oY supplying the various wants of a growing community, and partly by the thrifty habits of the first settlers. With the Indians Boston seldom came into direct contact; and only once were there serious fears of an attack from them. This was in August, 1632, not quite two years after the settlement of the town, when "notice being given of ten sagamores and many Indians assembled at Muddy River,** says Winthrop, "the governor sent Captain Underbill with twenty musketeers to discover, &c. ; but at Roxbury they heard they were broke up.'*^ While towns not more than twenty or thirty miles distant were the scenes of frequent alarms, Boston was happily preserved from the Indian torch and tomahawk. There was a limited trade with the Indians, but from the comparatively small number of them living near Boston it could never have been of much value to the town. The extensive maritime trade which sprang up at an early date had its origin, however, in a voyage to the Indian country. Only a few weeks after the naming of the town a vessel was sent south to buy corn. "About the end of October, this year, 1630, I joined with the governor and Mr. Maverick," says Dudley, in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln, "in sending out our pinnace to the Narragansetts, to trade for corn to supply our wants; but after the pinnace had doubled Cape Cod, she put into the next harbor she found, and there meeting with Indians, who showed their willingness to truck, she made her voyage there, and brought us a hundred bushels of corn, at about four shillings a bushel, which helped us somewhat."'

This expedition was more fortunate than that of the Salem people in the following year. In September, 1631, the Salem pinnace was sent out on a similar errand, but was driven by head winds into Plymouth harbor, "where," siays Winthrop, "the governor, &c., fell out with them, not only forbidding them to trade, but also telling them they would oppose them by force, even to the spending of their lives, &c. ; whereupon they returned, and acquainting the governor of Massachusetts with it, he wrote to the governor of Plymouth this letter, here inserted with their answer, which came about a month after." ^ So far as is known, neither Winthrop's letter nor Bradford's reply has been preserved. But about the middle of November, we are told, " the governor of Plymouth came to Boston, and lodged in the ship."* The purpose of this visit was, no doubt, to settle the quarrel; and from that time the relations of the Boston and the Plymouth people were almost uniformly of a friendly, and sometimes of a very intimate character. In September of the next year Winthrop and Wilson, pastor of the Boston church, went on foot from Weymouth to Plymouth, where they partook of the communion with the Plymouth church, and afterward addressed the congregation.' In June, 1647, Governor Bradford attended the synod at Cambridge as a messenger from the church of Plymouth.^ In the latter part of 1646, Edward Winslow, at that time one of the Plymouth magistrates, was sent to England as the agent of Massachusetts to answer the complaints of Child and Gorton.* At the very close of the colonial period the Plymouth Court passed a vote of thanks to Increase Mather for his services in England, and desired Sir Henry Ashurst, who was made their agent, to consult with him about obtaining a charter for the colony/ and it was mainly through Mather's efforts that Massachusetts and Plymouth were brought under one government.^ These instances are sufficient to show how intimate were the relations of the two colonies.

The trade between Massachusetts and Virginia, of which Boston afterward had the principal share, appears to have begun with Salem. In May, 163 1, Winthrop records the arrival at Salem of "a pinnace of eighteen tons^ laden with corn and tobacco. She was bound to the north, and put m there by foul weather. She sold her corn at ten shillings the bushel." ^ It was probably some irregularity in the sale of this cargo which induced the General Court, at its next session, to order "that no person whatsoever shall buy com or any other provision or merchantable commodity of any ship or bark that comes into tliis bay, without leave from the governor or some other of the assistants."^ In the beginning of 1632 a bark arrived here from Virginia, having been to the northern settlements and to Salem to sell corn. She remained in the harbor for nearly a month, when she sailed again for Virginia, with Mr. Maverick's pinnace.* Not long afterward Captain Peirce arrived from England in the ship "Lion," and after discharging his cargo and leaving his passengers, some of whom became prominent among the leading men in the Connecticut colony, he sailed for Virginia. In less than a week from the time of sailing his vessel was wrecked at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, to the serious loss of Boston and Plymouth. "Plymouth men," says Winthrop, "lost four hogsheads, nine hundred pounds of beaver, and two hundred otter skins. The governor of Massachusetts lost, in beaver and fish, which he sent to Virginia, &c., near ;C!0O. Many others lost beaver, and Mr. Humfrey, fish."* In the spring or summer of 1644, after the great Indian massacre of that year, a considerable number of persons emigrated from Virginia to Massachusetts. The most conspicuous man among them was Captain Daniel Gookin, a name which will always be remembered in connection with the Christian Indians, of whom he was a steadfast friend. He is su[xposed to have arrived in Boston on the 20th of May, was made a freeman only nine days later, and was the last major-general in the colonial period.'

In May, 1642, about seventy persons in Virginia wrote to Boston, " bewailing their sad condition for want of the means of salvation, and earnestly entreating a supply of faithful ministers^ whom, upon experience of their gifts and godliness, they might call to office." These letters were publicly read at the Thursday lecture; and subsequently it was agreed that the ministers who could be spared best were Mr. Phillips^ of Watertown, Mr. Tompson, of Braintrec, and Mr. Miller, of Rowley, as. each of these churches had two ministers. Various difficulties, however, arose, but finally Mr. Knowles, of Watertown, and Mr. Tompson, agreed to go, and in October they left for their new home, intending to embark at Narragansett.* Here they were wind-bound for several weeks, but in the mean time they were joined by another minister, - Mr. James, of New Haven; and after a long and perilous winter voyage they reached Virginia in safety. "There," says Winthrop, "they found very loving and liberal entertainment, and were bestowed in several places, not by the governor, but by some welldisposed people who desired their company." They were soon silenced, however, by the Virginia authorities, because they would not conform to the Church of England, and were ordered to leave the colony. They reached home in the summer of 1643.* Puritanism could not thrive in Virginia under the shadow of Sir William Berkeley's administration.

With North Carolina also Boston had early and intimate relations. Thirty years after the settlement of the town, just as the first generation had passed away, a party of emigrants, desirous, perhaps, of finding a more genial climate,® established themselves at the mouth of Cape Fear River^

- Ibid. li. 165, and Mr. Savage's note. [See land^ in 2 Mass //isf. Coll., y\. 411. Dr. Ellis's chapter on "The Indians of Eastern * ISavage, Winthrop*s New England, i. iiS,

The enterprise met with little success, and in May, 1667, the General Court passed an order for the relief of the unfortunate settlement. " Upon the perusal of a letter sent from Mr. John Vassall, and the people with him at Cape Fear," the order recites, " directed to Major-General John Leverett, desiring that they may have some relief in their distress, and having information that the honored governor, deputy-governor, and some others of our honored magistrates encouraged a contribution for the relief of those people, the which contribution hath been made in many places, and hath been committed to the care of Mr. Peter Oliver and John Bateman, of Boston," - the Court ordered the said Mr. Peter Oliver and John Bateman to carry on the contributions, empowering them to receive the same ; and further ordering them *' to keep exact accounts of their receipts and disbursements, that they may render the same when they are called thereto by this Court." * This was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, of the contributions by which Boston and Massachusetts have afforded relief to other communities in times of sickness, famine, or disaster.

In spite of the extreme aversion with which the settlers of Massachusetts regarded the Romish Church, there was some friendly intercourse with Maryland. In August, 1634, Winthrop records the arrival at Boston of a pinnace of about fifty tons ** from Maryland upon Potomac River, with corn to exchange for fish and other commodities. The governor, Leonard Calvert, and two of the commissioners, wrote to the governor here, to make offer of trade of corn, etc., and the governor of Virginia wrote also on their behalf, and one Captain Young wrote to make offer to deliver cattle here. Near all their company came sick hither, and the merchant died within one week after."* At a still later period, in July, 1642, there was another arrival at Boston on a similar errand. "From Maryland," says Winthrop, '*came one Mr. Ncale with two pinnaces and commission from Mr. Calvert, the governor there, to buy mares and sheep, but having nothing to pay for them but bills charged upon the Lord Baltimore, in England, no man would deal with him. One of his vessels was so eaten with worms that he was forced to leave her." ' Even more suggestive is a record which appears in October of the following year: "The Lord Baltimore being owner of much land near Virginia, being himself a Papist, and his brother, Mr. Calvert, the governor there, a Papist also, but the colony consisted both of Protestants and Papists, he wrote a letter to Captain Gibbons of Boston, and sent him a commission, wherein he made tender of land in Maryland, to any of ours that would transport themselves thither, with free liberty of religion, and all other privileges which the place afforded, paying such annual rent as should be agreed upon ; but our captain had no mind to further his desire herein, nor had any of our people temptation that way." ^ It would have been strange, indeed, if our Puritan ancestors could have so far overcome their aversion to Romanism as to leave a Puritan colony in order to seek new homes in a colony founded and governed by Catholics. In spite of the ungenial climate and sterile soil of New England, there does not seem to have been much disposition among the first settlers to forsake Massachusetts for more attractive places. The removals from Cambridge and Dorchester to Connecticut are scarcely an exception to this statement ; and the number who went to the West Indies, to Long Island, or back to Kngland, aficr the triumph of Puritanism there, was not large.

Massachusetts had relations with the Swedes on the Delaware River at an early date, but an .iccount of these relations belongs to the annals of the New England Confederacy rather than to the history of Boston.* So early as 1641 New Haven had established a trading-house there, near the Swedish fort, by the governor of which the New Haven people were badly treated. They made complaint to the Commissioners of the United Colonies, who wrote a letter to the Swedish governor, and sent an agent to treat with him for redress of grievances.* Subsequently " the Swedes denied what they had been charged with/* says Winthrop, '* and sent copies of divers examinations upon oath taken in the cause, with a copy of all the proceedings between them and our friends of New Haven from the first; and in their letters used large expressions of their respect to the English, and particularly to our colony." ' Early in 1644 a pinnace was sent from Boston to the Delaware to trade; but the voyage proved unsuccessful, partly through the refusal of the Dutch and Swedish governors to allow them to trade with the Indians, and partly through the drunkenness of the master. On the return of the pinnace the adventurers brought an action against the master, both for his drunkenness, and for not proceeding with the voyage as he was required to do by his charter. They recovered two hundred pounds from him, "which was too much," says Winthrop, "though he did deal badly with them, for it was very probable they could not have proceeded."* In the autumn a bark was sent from Boston, with seven men, for the same purpose. They remained near the English settlement all winter, and in the spring fell down the river to trade. In this they were so successful that in three weeks they had obtained five hundred fur-skins and other merchandise, when they were suddenly attacked by the Indians, who killed the master and three men, plundered the vessel, and carried away another man and a boy. Finally, the survivors were recovered by the Swedish governor, who sent them to New Haven. From that place they were brought to Boston.*

With the Dutch at New York there were various relations of trade and hostility. So early as September, 1642, the former had become so large that the General Court found it necessary to pass an order determining the value of Dutch coins; and they accordingly, "considering the oft occasions we have of trading with the Hollanders at the Dutch plantation, and other on the Delaware, and their intercourse with New Plymottth Col. Records, ix. 13. England, in N. E. Hist, and Cental. Reg., Jan- Winthrop, Hist, of New England^ ii. 157.

wise," ordered "that the Holland ducatour, worth three guilders, shall be current at six shillings in all payments within our jurisdiction, and the rix dollar, being two and one half guilders, shall be likewise current at Ave shillings, and the real of eight shall be also current at five shillings." ^ At a still earlier period, in August, 1634, we have Winthrop's testimony as to the extent and character of this trade. ** Our neighbors of Plymouth, and we, had oft trade with the Dutch at Hudson's River, called by them New Netherlands," he writes. "We had from them about forty sheep, and beaver, and brass pieces, and sugar, &c., for sack, strong waters, linen cloth, and other commodities. They have a great trade of beaver, - about nine or ten thousand skins in a ycar."^ In May, 1653, during the war between England and Holland, the General Court passed an order prohibiting all persons within their jurisdiction "from carrying provisions, as corn, beef, pease, bread, or pork, &c., into any of the plantations of Dutch or French inhabiting in any of the parts of America," under penalty of a fine of three times the value of the provisions carried in violation of the order.' This prohibition remained in force until August, 1654, when the Court ordered that "the law made in May, 1653, prohibiting trade with the Dutch, be henceforth repealed." *

When the Royal Commissioners sent over by Charles H. in the summer of 1664 visited Boston, one of the questions submitted to the General Court was whether the Colony would send any men to assist in the expedition against the Dutch of New Netherlands. This question having been decided in the affirmative, the Court, at the special session, August 3, ordered that there should be "voluntary soldiers raised in this jurisdiction for his Majesty's service against the Dutch, not exceeding the number of two hundred, to be ready to march by the 20th of this instant."* Accordingly officers were selected for "such forces as shall be raised in this jurisdiction," and a committee was appointed to see if Mr. Graves would "dispense the word of God to such as are intended for this expedition." The volunteers were also to be allowed "an able chirurgeon, such as they can get, furnished with all things necessary for such service."® Whether any volunteers actually enlisted iii Boston under these and the other orders passed at the same time does not appear ; but the Royal Commissioners, when they left Boston, were accompanied by representatives from Massachusetts, and the Dutch did not venture to resist the force which shortly afterward appeared before the little fort on Manhattan Island. The Dutch settlements came under English control ; and at a somewhat later period Boston and New York had the same governor.

Both the colony of New Haven and the colony of Connecticut were settled in part from Massachusetts, and their relations with Boston were always more or less intimate ; but these relations, on one occasion, at least, were subject to colonial regulations which operated to the disadvantage of Boston, though for the general interest of the colony. In May, 1649, the General Court established retaliatory duties on "all goods belonging or appertaining to any inhabitant of the jurisdictions of Plymouth, Connecticut, or New Haven," imported into Boston or exported from any part of the bay.* The occasion of the passage of this order was the approval by the Commissioners of the United Colonics of a duty on all corn or beaver skins belonging to the inhabitants of Springfield, which should pass the mouth of the Connecticut River. This duty was to be applied to the upholding of the fort at Saybrook, and not to be "continued longer than the fort in question is maintained, and the passage as at present thereby secured."' Massachusetts, not unreasonably, objected that the fort was of little or no use for the purpose intended, and that the duty was continued after the fort was burned down.' The passage of the retaliatory order must, however, have seriously affected the trade of Boston ; and at the session in May, 1650, in answer to a petition from the inhabitants of Boston for its repeal, the Court passed an order setting forth that "the Court (being credibly informed that the Court at Connecticut will, for the present, suspend the taking of any custom of us, and at their next General Court intend to repeal their order that requires it) do hereby order the suspension of that law of ours that requires any custom of the other confederate colonies until they shall know that Connecticut do take custom of us."*

This was the only instance in which Massachusetts levied retaliatory duties on trade with the other English colonies, and it is the only instance in which Boston appears to have made special complaint. There were, indeed, numerous colonial regulations aflfecting trade; but they were almost without exception based on obvious reasons of expediency, or concerned the other towns in the colony quite as much as they did Boston. For instance, in March, 1634-35, the Court passed an order forbidding any person to go on board of any ship, without leave of one of the Assistants, until she had lain at anchor at Nantasket, or within some inhabited harbor, for twentyfour hours, under penalty of "confiscation of all his estate, and such further punishment as the Court shall think meet to inflict."^ At the same session it was ordered "that no person whatsoever, either people of this jurisdiction or strangers, shall buy any commodity of any ship or other vessel that comes into this jurisdiction without license from the governor for the time being, under the penalty of confiscation of such goods as shall be so bought, or the value of them." ^ The first of these orders was repealed in the following September;" and the other in May, 1636.® In November, 1655, the General

* Mass. Col. Records, vol. iv. pt. \. p. 11. It Mr. Footc's chapter. - Ed.| should not l)c forgotten that the formation of » Afass. Col. Records, i. 136. the third church in Boston, known to us as the - Ibid. p. 141.

Court, taking into '' serious consideration the great necessity of upholding the staple commodities of this country for the supply and support of the inhabitants thereof/' absolutely prohibited the importation of malt» wheat, barley, biscuit, beef, meal, and flour into the colony from any part of Europe, under penalty of confiscation.^

From the circumstances under which Rhode Island was settled, and the distrust with which that colony was regarded by her neighbors, Boston had much less intercourse with the inhabitants of that jurisdiction than with the other colonies ; but an account of the relations of Massachusetts and Rhode Island does not properly fall within the scope of this chapter.' Roger Williams was a resident of Salem when he had leave to depart out of this juris- ' diction ; and the dealings with Gorton's followers, which have been made the ground for much reproach, were in exact conformity with the orders of the colonial authorities or of the Commissioners of the United Colonies. With the settlements in New Hampshire and Maine Boston had more frequent relations; and it was to New Hampshire that Wheelwright and many of his followers betook themselves when they also had license to remove themselves and their families out of Massachusetts. But both New Hampshire and Maine were, during a part of the colonial period, under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts; and everything relating to them belongs to the history of the colony rather than to the history of the town.

With the French colonies Boston had so frequent and various relations that the whole colony came to be known as the colony of Boston, or Baston, as the name was commonly written ; ^ and the inhabitants of Massachusetts, and even of the other colonies, were designated as Boston men, or '' Bostonnais." Schemes for its capture more than once formed part of the ambitious. designs of the French chiefs at Quebec.^ It was probably to these schemes that we owe at least two of the most interesting of the early maps of Boston.^

Indeed, the relations of Boston and of Massachusetts to the quarrels of two rival French governors of Acadia (La Tour and D'Aulnay) form one of the most curious and interesting episodes in the early history of the town and of the colony.* The questions growing out of the rivalry of these ambitious and unscrupulous men fill a large space in our colonial annals ; but, as they are questions which originated in the desire of the Boston merchants to increase the foreign trade of the town, they may very properly be treated

* It is worthy ol remark, however, that in America^ pt. v. pp. 382-384. the Winthrop Papers, in 4 Mass, Hist ColL^ * Franquelin*s map of 1693, ^ which a heliovol. vi., there are thirty-nine friendly letters type reproduction has recently been prepared

' [This form, Btislon^ simply preserved the duced in this volume, broad French sound {Hawsion) as their cquiva- * The names of these rivals arc variously here at some length. In the discussion of them, party lines were for the first time drawn between town and country. The course which the colonial government followed was in accordance with the wishes and with the approval of the people of Boston, while the remonstrances came from Ipswich and Salem and other places which could expect to derive little benefit from an increased trade with the French colonies. "I must needs say that I fear we shall have little comfort in having anything to do with these idolatrous French," Endicott wrote to Winthrop, in June, 1643.^ In saying this, he only expressed an opinion very generally entertained away from Boston. Here the drift of opinion was naturally in the opposite direction.

By the treaty of St. Germains, concluded between France and England March 29, 1632, the whole of the French territory in America which had been conquered by England was restored to the former country; and shortly afterward the Chevalier Rasilli was appointed by the King of France to the chief command in Acadia. The new governor designated as his lieutenants Charles dc la Tour for the portion cast of the St. Croix, and Charles dc Menou, Sieur d*Aulnay-Charnis6, for the portion to the westward as far as the French claim extended.^ The latter is said to have been " a zealous and efficient supporter of the Romish Church;"' but "La Tour pretended to be a Huguenot, or at least to think favorably of that religion."* A belief that La Tour sympathized with their religious opinions no doubt had weight with the colonial authorities in determining the policy to be pursued with regard to the rivals ; but it seems more than probable that he cared very little about what he professed to believe. He was so cautious, or so indifferent to political obligations, that he obtained grants from Sir William Alexander, who derived his title from James I., and also from the French government* The first appearance of either of the rivals in our history is in November or December, 1633, when Winthrop writes that news came of the taking of Machias by the French: "Mr. Allerton, of Plymouth, and some others had set up a trading wigwam there, and left in it five men and store of commodities. La Tour, governor of the French in those parts, making claim to the place, came to displant them, and, finding resistance, killed two of the men and carried away the other three and the goods." - The first appearance of the name of D'Aulnay, nearly two years later, is accompanied by equally unpleasant circumstances. In the summer of 1635 he seized the Plymouth trading-house at Penobscot, and sent the traders home with many fair promises, but without making payment for the property he had taken. This greatly excited the Plymouth colony, - "so as they resolved to consult with their friends in the bay," says Bradford; "and, if they approved of it (there being now many ships there), they intended to hire a ship of force, and seek to beat out the Frenchi and recover it again." ^ The Massachusetts authorities sympathized cordially with the proposed movement, but they were unwilling to bear the cost of an expedition mainly designed for the benefit of Plymouth. However, at the September session of the General Court it was " agreed that Plymouth shall be aided with men and munition to supplant the French at Penobscot.*'* At the same session it was further agreed that the commissioners for martial discipline ** shall have full power to assist our neighbors at Plymouth for the supplanting of the French at Penobscot or elsewhere, in any other business of that nature that may be occasioned thereby." ^ It was probably after the passage of these votes that the Plymouth people entered into an agreement with one Girling, the master of the " Great Hope," - a well-armed ship of above three hundred tons, - ''that he and his company should deliver them the house (after they had driven out or surprised the French), and give them peaceable possession thereof, and of all such trading commodities as should there be found, and give the French fair quarter and usage, if they would yield." * With him they sent their own bark, with twenty men under the command of Captain Miles Standish, to aid in the capture of the place, if necessary, and ** to order things if the house was regained." But the expedition failed, through the incompetence or bad faith of Girling ; and, upon its failure, a second application was made to Massachusetts.

On receiving this new application, the Governor and Assistants requested Plymouth to send commissioners to Boston, with full authority to treat of the whole subject. Accordingly, Thomas Prence, who had been governor of the colony the year before, and Captain Standish were empowered to conclude an arrangement for the further prosecution of the enterprise. When they met, however, says Winthrop, the Plymouth commissioners *' refused to deal further in it otherwise than as a common cause of the whole country, and so to contribute their part. We refused to deal in it otherwise than as in their aid, and so at their charge ; for indeed we had then no money in the treasury, neitlier could we get provision of victuals, on the sudden, for one hundred men, which were to be employed."^ The expedition was accordingly abandoned; and it does not appear that after that time Plymouth had any direct relations with either D'Aulnay or La Tour. Unfortunately, it was only the beginning of the relations of the Massachusetts colony with them.

The next mention of D'Aulnay is in connection with circumstances of a more friendly character, though they were afterward made ground of complaint. Writing only a few weeks later, - in November, 1635, - Winthrop records that " the pinnace which Sir Richard Saltonstall sent to take possession of a great quantity of land at Connecticut was, in her return into England, cast away upon the Isle Sable. The men were kindly enter- tained by the French there, and had passage to La Have, some twenty leagues east of Cape Sable, where Monsieur, commander of Roselle, was governor, who entertained them very courteously, and furnished them with a shallop to return to us, and gave four of their company passage into France, but made them pay dear for their shallop ; and in their return they put into^ Penobscot, at such time as Girling's ship lay there ; so that they were kept prisoners there till the ship was gone, and then sent to us with a courteous letter to our governor. A little before, our governor had written to him (viz., Mons. D'AuInay) them home to us, but they were come before.' letter, however, of the Governor and Council to D'Aulnay in 1643, "your taking of the goods of Sir Richard Saltonstall, knight, and the imprisoning of his men, who suffered shipwreck upon the Isle of Sables eight years past," are mentioned first among " the particulars wherein we conceive ourselves, friends, and confederates to be by you injured, and for the which we never yet received satisfaction." -

Nothing of importance seems to have occurred during the next few years; but in November, 1641, La Tour sent one of his people - a Protestant from Rochelle, named Rochett - to conclude a treaty of commerce and alliance with the Massachusetts colony. The authorities were willing to grant liberty of commerce ; but they declined to furnish aid to La Tour in his war against D'Aulnay, or to allow him to bring goods out of England by our merchants, on the ground that the envoy had no proper credcnti.nls.' In the following yctir another embassy came, with a new request for assistance against D'Aulnay, and remained about a week, leaving a very favorable impression behind them. " Though they were Papists," says Winthrop, " yet they came to our church meeting ; and the lieutenant seemed to be much affected to find things as he did, and professed he never saw so good order in any place. One of the elders gave him a French Testament with Marlorat's notes, which he kindly accepted, and promised to read it." * In June, 1643, ^^ Tour himself made a visit to Boston, in a ship from Rochelle, - the master and crew of which were Protestants, but having as passengers two friars and two women sent from France to wait on Madame La Tour. On the arrival of the vessel a curious incident occurred, which gives a very vivid idea of the life of the town at that time and of its defenceless condition. The wife of Captain Gibbons, with her children, was going down the harbor to visit her husband's farm at Pullen Point, when she was recognized by one of the gentlemen on La Tour's vessel, who knew her. Thereupon, La Tour manned his shallop to go and speak with her. Mrs. Gibbons, on seeing so many foreigners approach, was alarmed, and hastened to land at the governor's garden, now the site of Fort Winthrop. Here she found the governor and his wife and two sons and his son's wife. Presently La Tour landed, and, after saluting the governor, told him the cause of his coining, - that this ship had been sent to him from France, but his old enemy, D'Aulnay, had blockaded the river at St. John's, so that she could not get in. He had accordingly slipped out of the river in a shallop by night, and had come to ask help from Massachusetts. After supper, the governor went up to the town in La Tour's boat, - having previously sent Mrs. Gibbons home in his own boat. In the mean time news of the arrival of a strange ship had spread through Boston and Charlestown ; and " the towns betook them to their arms, and three shallops with armed men came forth to meet the governor and to guard him home. But here the Lord gave us occasion to take notice of our weakness, &c.," says Winthrop ; ** for if La Tour had been ill-minded towards us, he had such an opportunity as we hope neither he nor any other shall ever have the like again ; for coming by our castle and saluting it, there was none to answer him, for the last Court had given order to have the Castle Island deserted, - a great part of tlie work being fallen down, &c., - so as he might have taken all the ordnance there. Then, having the governor and his family and Captain Gtbbons's wife, &c., in his power, he might have gone and spoiled Boston ; and having so many men ready, they might have taken two ships in the harbor, and gone away without danger or resistance ; but his neglecting this opportunity gave us assurance of his true meaning." ^

On landing, La Tour was escorted by the governor and a guard to his lodgings at the house of Captain Gibbons. The next ^1^/ QMOiTiSO day the governor called together all the magistrates ^ whom he was able to notify, to consider any proposals which La Tour might submit. The latter was present with the master of the vessel, who exhibited a commission from the Vice-Admiral of France, authorizing him to convey supplies to La Tour, his Majesty's Lieutenant of Acadia. A letter from the agent of the French company for the colonization of Acadia was also shown, in which La Tour was addressed as Lieutenant-General, and informed of the injurious practices of D'Aulnay. These documents satisfied the magistrates that La Tour was not a rebel, as D'Aulnay had called him in a letter to the governor the year before, and that he was in good standing at the court of France. The colonial authorities did not feel at liberty, however, to aid him directly, without the advice of the Commissioners of the United Colonies ; but they readily granted him permission to hire any vessels in the harbor. His men were also allowed to come on shore to refresh themselves, " so they landed in small companies, that our women, &c., might not be affrighted by them." * The next week, the training-day occurred at Boston ; and La Tour, having expressed a wish to exercise his men on shore, was allowed on that occasion to land forty men. They were escorted to the field by the Boston company, which numbered one hundred and fifty men. After the exercises were over. La Tour i Winthrop, Hist of New Engiand^ ii. 107. cordu, as cited in ShurtlcfTs Dae. of Boston^ [This incident prompted ttie authorities to re- pp. 483-84. See Mr. Hynncr's chapter. »Ka] pair the fortifications on the island. C£. Re- « Winthrop, Hisi. of New England, ii. 108.

Boston And The Neighboring Jurisdictions

and his officers were invited home to dinner by the Boston officers, and his soldiers by the Boston soldiers. In the afternoon the Frenchmen went through a variety of military movements in the presence of the governor and magistrates, who were much interested in what they saw. La Tour remained in Boston for about a month. " Our governor and others in the town," says Winthrop, " entertained La Tour and his gentlemen with much courtesy, both in their houses and at table. La Tour came duly to our church meetings, and always accompanied the governor to and from thence, who, all the time of his abode here, was attended with a good guard of halberts and musketeers." *

Meanwhile, the reports of what had been done in Boston created a lively excitement in the other towns of the colony ; and one minister, whose name has not come down to us, but who is vouched for as "judicious," when he heard that the strangers were to go through their military exercises on shore, predicted that before the day was ended much blood would be spilled in Boston. Letters poured in on the governor, - some setting before him " great dangers, others charging sin upon the conscience in all these proceedings." Accordingly, he wrote and circulated at least two answers to these complaints.' For further satisfaction, another meeting of the neighboring magistrates, deputies, and ciders was held, at which two questions were discussed: "(i) Whether it were lawful for Christians to aid idolaters, and how far we may hold communion with them? (2) Whether it were safe for our state to suffer him to have aid from us against D'Aulnay ? " The arguments on the one side and the other extend over several pages of Winthrop's journal, and are in a large part derived from Old Testament precedents about Jehoshaphat and Ahab and Ahaziah and Josias, and the King of Babylon, and Pharaoh Necho, and Solomon, and the Queen of Sheba, and other precedents of a similar character, the relevancy of which is not very apparent. The final issue was that the line of policy previously marked out remained unchanged. The colony gave no direct aid to La Tour; but he was allowed to make any arrangements that he could with the inhabitants of Boston and the masters of the vessels in the harbor. On the 14th of July he left Boston, - " the governor and divers of the chief of the town accompanying him to his boat. There went with him four of our ships and a pinnace. He hired them for two months, - the chiefest, which had sixteen pieces of ordnance, at two hundred pounds the month (yet she was of but one hundred tons, but very well-manned and fitted for fight), and the rest proportionable. The owners took only his own security for their pay. He entertained also about seventy land soldiers, volunteers, at 40J. per month a man ; but he paid them somewhat in hand." '

- For one of these letters see Hutchinson, " Philip and Mary," ship " Increase,*' and ship CM. of Original Papers^ pp. 121-132. "Greyhound," for this expedition, dated June 30,

- Winthrop, Hist, of New England^ ii. 127. 1643, is recorded in the Suffolk Registry of The contract between I^ Tour and Captain Deeds, and is printed in Hazard's /////<?riVii/ O/- Edward Gibbons and Thomas Hawkins, masters lections^ i. 499-502.

The sudden appearance of La Tour's fleet in the eastern waters was a surprise to his rival, who, on seeing them, attempted to escape to the westward with two ships and a pinnace. Being closely pursued, D'Aulnay ran his vesseb ashore, and began to fortify himself; on which a messenger was sent to him with letters from the governor of the Massachusetts colony and Captain Hawkins. The messenger was led blindfold into the presence of D'Aulnay, who showed him the original decree against La Tour, and sent a copy of it to the governor ; but he would not make peace with La Tour. The latter then endeavored to persuade our men to attack D'Aulnay, which they declined to do ; but with Hawkins's consent about thirty volunteers joined La Tour's men in an attack on a fortified mill belonging to his rival, which was taken and set on fire. Some standing corn was also burned ; one prisoner was taken and carried on board the vessels, and three Frenchmen on each side were killed. About the same time our ships captured D'Aulnay's pinnace, with four hundred moose skins and four hundred beaver skins. These they divided, - one-third and the pinnace to La Tour, one-third to the ships, and the remainder to the men. After this, nothing more was done ; and at the expiration of the time for which they were chartered the ships returned to Boston. The pinnace, before leaving for home, went up the river some twenty leagues, and loaded with coal; and her men also procured a piece of limestone, - possibly the first coal and limestone brought into Boston from that part of Nova Scotia now called New Brunswick.^

In the following summer La Tour came again to Boston to obtain further assistance. On hearing his statement, most of the magistrates and some of the elders were in favor of helping him, partly as an act of charity toward a neighbor in distress, and partly in the hope of weakening his rival, whom ^..^^ they regarded as an enemy, or, at least, and many of the elders were absent, it was determined to have another meeting at Salem, at which the rest of the ciders should be invited to be present. After much discussion, it was found to be impossible to obtain a full consent to the taking of active measures in behalf of La Tour ; but all agreed that a warning should be sent to D'Aulnay.* Accordingly a letter was drawn up, setting forth that an application had been made to the Governor and Council by La Tour for assistance of men and ammunition, which had given them occasion to consider what were their own relations with him, and to take notice of the many injuries already suffered from him, and especially of certain commissions lately issued to take their vessels and goods. As for the operations of the last year, it was declared, in order that the

-hallop should be sent to the eastward to get ence to this voyage, coals, which if they get, the smiths are to bear * Winthrop, HUi. tfATew Ettgiamd, ii. 179^ i8a doings of the colonial authorities might not be misconstrued, that the men hired by La Tour " did not act cither by command, counsel, or commission of the government here established ; they went as volunteers." If any unlawful action was committed at that time, the Colony would be ready to render satisfaction ; " for as we are not willing to bear injuries whilst we have in our hands to right ourselves, we ever desire to be conscientiously careful not to offer any ourselves, nor to approve of it in any of ours." Satisfaction was then demanded for the taking of the goods of Sir Richard Saltonstall and the imprisoning of his men ; for the taking of Penobscot from the Plymouth people ; for the refusal of permission for our vessels to trade at Port Royal, under a threat of capture if they should go beyond Pemtagoictt; and for the granting of the commissions mentioned in the beginning of the letter, - "that so we may understand how you are at present disposed, whether to war or peace." It was then declared that the Colony had not complied with La Tour's request, ** but, on the contrary, upon this occasion we have expressly prohibited all our people to exercise any act of hostility, either by sea or land, against you, unless it be in their own defence, until such time as they shall have further commission." Finally the Governor and Council plainly intimated to him their intention to protect any of their merchants who should continue to trade with La Tour.* About the same time Governor Edward Winslow, of Plymouth, assigned to John Winthrop, Jr., Edward Gibbons, and Thomas Hawkins all the rights of the Plymouth people growing out of their former possession of " Matchebiguatus, in Penobscot," with full power to recover the same by force of arms or otherwise. But whatever may have been the intention of the grantees or of the Massachusetts Colony in obtaining this assignment, it does not appear that anything was done under it, or that it was ever used in any way.'

Having failed of success in his main effort, La Tour left Boston in the early part of September ; and, as it was the ordinary training-day, the Governor and many other persons accompanied him to his boat, under the escort of all the train-bands in the town. About ten days after his departure Madame La Tour arrived here in a ship from London. She had been about six months on the voyage, and had narrowly escaped capture by D'Aulnay off Cape Sable. By the same vessel the latter wrote to the Deputy-Governor that the King of France had learned that the aid given to La Tour was in consequence of the commission from the Vice-Admiral of France, which had been shown in Boston. The King had accordingly given instructions that peace should be maintained with the English. These instructions the writer intended to obey, so far as it was possible to do so ; and he added that he should send a messenger to Boston to treat of the matters of difference. Shortly after her arrival Madame La Tour commenced a suit against the master and the consignee of the ship for a breach of contract in not carrying her to her port. After a hearing, which lasted four days, the jury awarded her damages to the amount of two thousand pounds. She then caused the arrest of the master and the consignee, who were obliged to surrender the portion of the cargo already landed, in order to secure their release. Thereupon the master petitioned the General Court for his freight and wages. As the majority of the magistrates were of the opinion that nothing was due, and the majority of the deputies were of the opposite opinion, nothing came of it ; and accordingly the captain brought an action before a jury at the next Court of Assistants. On the trial of the issue, whether the goods were or were not held for the freight, the jury . found for the defendant. ** This business," says Winthrop, " caused much trouble and charge to the country, and made some difference between the merchants of Charlestown (who took part with the merchants and master of the ship) and the merchants of Boston, who assisted the lady (some of them being deeply engaged for La Tour), so as offers were made on both sides for an end between them. Those of Charlestown offered security for the goods, if, upon a review within thirteen months, the judgment were not reversed, or the Parliament in England did not call the cause before themselves. This last clause was very ill-taken by the Court, as making way for appeals, &c., into England, which was not reserved in our charter." ^ It was not possible for the parties to come to an agreement, and Madame La Tour kept possession of the goods, and hired three ships which lay in the harbor to carry her home. Her opponents also sailed about the same time, in company with one of our own ships. On the arrival of the latter in London, two of the passengers - the recorder of the court and one of the jurymen who had g^iven the verdict in favor of Madame La Tour - were arrested, and compelled to find sureties in a bond for four thousand pounds to answer to a suit in the Court of Admiralty. After much trouble and expense they were released, and returned home.* They then petitioned the General Court for relief; but both the magistrates and deputies voted that they knew no way of help, except to certify the truth of the proceedings of the Court in Boston, which they were ready to do.*

In the mean time, D'Aulnay had sent a boat with ten men to Salem, where he had heard the Governor then lived. Among them was **one Marie, supposed to be a friar, but habited like a gentleman." On finding in the library of the Massachusetts Historical natural order of proceeding. Society, Winthrop erased the second account, * Winthrop, /list, of New Englatid, ii. 248.

Boston And The Neighboring Jurisdictions. 29I

that Boston was the capital, Marie wrote a letter to the Governor, inquiring where he should wait on him, and the next day came to Boston with full credentials from D'Aulnay. Here he exhibited a commission from the King of France, under the Great Seal, with the Privy Seal annexed, verifying the proceedings against La Tour, and commanding his arrest and that of his wife, who had fled from France against special order. He then complained of the assistance afforded to La Tour in the previous year, and offered to enter into a treaty of peace and amity. To these complaints it was answered that several of the ships and most of the men did not belong to the Colony ; that they had no commission from the authorities, and no permission to use hoMility ; and that the authorities were very sorry when they heard what had been done. With this he professed to be satisfied. To his proposals for a treaty, it was answered that nothing could be done without the advice of the Commissioners of the United Colonies.^ To these propositions two others were added by him, - that La Tour should not be aided, and that D'Aulnay should be. On the part of the Colonial Government strong efforts were made to bring about a reconciliation between the rivals ; but D'Aulnay's agent was not prepared to yield anything. If La Tour would submit voluntarily, his life and liberty should be assured ; but if he was taken, he was sure to lose his head in France. As for his wife, her chances were still worse ; for '' she was known to be the cause of his contempt and rebellion, and therefore they could not let her go to him." If she were sent in any of our vessels the vessels would be taken, and if any goods were sent to La Tour they should be taken, and no satisfaction allowed for the capture. Finally an arrangement was made within less than a week after his arrival, drawn up in Latin, and executed by the Governor and six of the magistrates in behalf of the Colony, and by M. Marie in behalf of D'Aulnay. This agreement, which bears the date of October 8, 1644, contains reciprocal promises to maintain a firm peace, with a right to each of the contracting parties to trade with the other, and if any occasion of offence should happen, there should be no hostile acts unless an explanation had first been asked and satisfaction refused. There were two provisos, - that the Massachusetts Government should not be obliged to restrain their merchants from trading in any place to which they might choose to go, or with any persons, whether French or not, with whom they might wish to trade ; and that these articles should be subject to the confirmation of the Commissioners of the United Colonics, This confirmation was not given until September in the following year.'

The articles of peace, with the ratification of the Commissioners, were sent to D'Aulnay shortly afterward, with the expression of a readiness on the part of the Massachusetts Colony to hear and settle all Complaints for injuries, and to keep the peace if he would subscribe to it. D'Aulnay treated the messenger with great courtesy, but refused to sign the articles until all diflferences had been composed, and sent back an insulting answer to the efTect that ** our drift was to gain time," and that " we should find that it was more his honor which he stood upon than his benefit." Under these circumstances, he would wait until spring for an answer to his complaints. On the receipt of this message there was an animated discussion in the General Court, from which it appeared that wide differences of opinion existed as to the proper course to be pursued. It was finally decided to send Deputy-Governor Dudley, who was then upward of seventy years of age, and two other prominent men - Mr. Hawthorne and Major Dcnison - to D'Aulnay, with full powers to treat of all matters of difference.^ As soon as information ,-jf^« / M^ - of this appointment reached the French Governor, he ^iYrfwxi ^MU4^iK professed to feel highly honored, and expressed a wish to save the Colony from trouble, offering to send two or three of his own people to Boston to settle the matters at issue.* Accordingly, in the following September, - almost exactly two years after the negotiation of the treaty, - " being the Lord's Day, and the people ready to go to the Assembly after dinner," three of D'Aulnay's principal men arrived in Boston. The next day they presented their credentials, and on the third day the negotiations began. While here the messengers were treated with great respect. "Their diet was provided at the ordinary," says Winthrop, "where the magistrates used to diet in court times, and the Governor accompanied them always at meals. Their manner was to repair to the Governor's house every morning about eight of the clock, who accompanied them to the place of meeting; and at night either himself or some of the commissioners accompanied them to their lodging." At first their demands were set pretty high. They claimed great injuries and damages from the acts of Captain Hawkins and his men, for which they desired to hold the Colony responsible ; but after a protracted discussion, in which the colonial authorities denied all responsibility either by commission or permission, and contended that the treaty of peace had been concluded without any reservation as to these matters, the extravagant demands of the French envoys were abandoned. " In the end they came to this conclu-' sion," says Winthrop. " We accepted their commissioners' answer in satisfaction of those things we had charged upon Monsieur D'Aulnay, and they accepted our answer for clearing our governnnent of what he had charged upon us." It was agreed that a small present should also be sent to D'Aulnay to make amends for the acts of Captain Hawkins ; and, in accordance with this understanding, " a very fair new sedan (worth forty or fifty pounds where it was made, but of no use to us)," which had been taken in the West Indies, and given to the Governor, was sent to D'Aulnay.^ The agreement

Boston And The Neighboring Jurisdictions

In the mean time D'Aulnay waged an active warfare against his rival ; and while the latter was absent on a trading voyage, his fort at St. John's was attacked and taken by assault. Madame La Tour fell into the hands of her enemy, and died in less than three weeks after\vard. By the capture of his fort La Tour lost jewels, plate, furniture, and other movables valued by him at ten thousand pounds, and was for a time rendered utterly helpless. His debts to the Boston merchants were very heavy, and to one of them alone (Major Gibbons) he owed upward of twenty-five hundred pounds. This was a total loss ; and, from the want of money to pay his adherents, his men became scattered, and he was himself obliged to seek shelter in Newfoundland. The Governor, Sir David Kirk, promised him assistance ; and subsequently he came to Boston, and was hospitably entertained at Noddle's Island by Maverick.^

In the midst of his distress La Tour was not without friends in Boston, who furnished him with trading commodities of the value of four hundred pounds. With these he sailed on a voyage to the eastward ; but when he reached Cape Sable, ** which was in the heart of winter," he conspired with the master and a part of the crew, seized the vessel, and put the Boston men ashore. "Whereby it appeared (as the Scripture saith) that there is no confidence in an unfaithful or carnal man,** Winthrop sadly writes. " Though tied with many strong bonds of courtesy, &c., he turned pirate.** Our men wandered about on the land for two weeks, when they met some friendly Indians, who furnished them with a shallop, food, and an Indian pilot, and at length they arrived home in safety.^

D*Aulnay reappears only once more in our history. In March, 1646-47, Captain Venner Dobson fitted out a small vessel, and obtained a license from the colonial authorities to trade in the Gulf of Canada. Stress of weather compelled him to put into harbor at Cape Sable. Here he traded with the Indians for some skins; and information of this fact having reached D'Aulnay, the latter immediately sent a party of men through the woods to put a stop to the transactions. Circumstances favored D*Aulnay*s party, and through gross negligence the ship and cargo, valued at a thousand pounds, were captured. As a matter of course both were confiscated, and the men were sent home in two old shallops. The Boston merchants were exasperated at this, and petitioned the General Court for redress, proposing to send out a good vessel to make reprisals on some of D*Aulnay's vessels. ** But the Court,** says Winthrop, ** thought it not safe nor expedient for us to begin a war with the French ; nor could we charge any manifest wrong upon D'Aulnay, seeing we had told him that if ours did trade within his liberties, they should do it at their own peril. And though we judged it an injury to restrain the natives and others from trading, &c. (they being a free people), yet, it being a common practice of all civil nations, his seizure of our ship would be accounted lawful, and our letters of reprisal unjust And, besides, there appeared an overruling Providence in it, otherwise he could not have seized a ship so well fitted, nor could wise men hj^ve lost her so foolishly."^

In 1650 or 1651 D'Aulnay died, and in 1652 his widow married La Tour.* By this marriage he had several children, and the race is not yet extinct in Nova Scotia. With this romantic termination of a long rivalry, which had largely influenced colonial politics, the names. of D'Aulnay and La Tour disappear from our annals. As has been stated already, the course pursued by the colonial authorities caused much dissatisfaction at the time. In the vigorous protest signed by the younger Richard Saltonstall and six others, in July, 1643, sometimes called the Ipswich letter, the writers argued with great ability against this course, and shrewdly remarked that neither D'Aulnay nor the French Government was so weak in intellect '' as to deem it no act of State, when upon consultation with some of our chief persons, our men are suffered, if not encouraged, to go forth with our provision and munition " to help La Tour. The course of the Government was not im-> properly regarded by the writers as little short of an act of war; and the grounds of a war, they maintained, ought to be just and necessary. But New England had no sufficient information to determine positively as to the justice of the war in which the colony had been invited to take part. In the next place, they argued, " wars ought not to be undertaken without the counsel and command of the supreme authority whence expeditions come," and in the then existing relations of France and England there ought not to be any act of hostility by the subjects of one against the other without a public commission of State, or unless it was in defence against a sudden assault. They then proposed three questions : ( i ) If D'Aulnay or France should demand the surrender of any persons who went on the expedition, on the ground that they were enemies or murderers, what was to be done? "(2) If any of the parents or wives shall require their lives at our hands, who shall answer them? (3) If any of their widows or children shall require sustenance, or any maimed soldier in this expedition call for maintenance, who shall give it them? Or if taken captive and made slaves, who shall rescue or redeem them? " In the third place, the ends of a war ought to be religious ; but the writers failed to see what honor was intended to God, and how peace was to be settled by engaging in this conflict. Fourthly, there ought to be probable ground for thinking the undertakings, of a war to be feasible ; but this expedition did not seem so to the remonstrants. Finally, '* according to Scripture and the custom of religious and ingenuous nations" there ought to be a previous summons and warning before beginning a war ; the defendant should have an opportunity to state

1 Winthrop, HiH, 0/ New England, ii. 309, Williamson, HisL of AfainCf i. 323; Mr. Shea's 31a See also 5 Mass, Hist, CM.^ i. 158. notes to Charlevoix's Hist 0/ Hew France, iii* his case, and there should be an offer of terms of peace, and instructions to the men engaged, - neither of which preliminaries could be observed in this instance "without a professed embarking ourselves in the action, which, it seems, is wholly declined on our parts." ^ In our own time the action of the colonial authorities has been criticised by Mr. Savage in his notes to Winthrop's History, and by other writers ; and it must be conceded that there are strong grounds for adverse criticism on the course pursued by them. The distinction which they attempted to draw between the acts of the Colony and the acts of individuals hired in Boston by La Tour is not a valid defence ; and the action of the Colony in this particular was censured by implication when the Commissioners of the United Colonies ordered, in September, 1644, "that no jurisdiction within this Confederation shall permit any voluntaries to go forth in a warlike way against any people whatsoever, without order and direction of the Commissioners of the several jurisdictions."' But it should be observed that both La Tour and D'Aulnay claimed to be acting under the authority of the French Crown, and that Massachusetts was justified in treating the whole matter as a personal quarrel, and in maintaining that nothing which she did or permitted could give just ground of offence to France. Moreover, the Colony had good reason for complaining of the hostile acts of D'Aulnay, and would have been justified in making reprisals on him. Whether any real advantage was gained for Massachusetts or for Boston by the course pursued is, perhaps, doubtful. But there was a wide-spread belief that D'Aulnay was likely to become a dangerous neighbor, and his proximity to the English settlements made him much more an object of fear than La Tour. '* If a thorough work could be made," Thomas Gorges wrote to Winthrop, in June, 1643, " that he might utterly be extirpated, I should like it well." *

The most important event in the history of the relations of Boston with the neighboring colonies was the formation of the New England Confederacy in 1643. The plan of this confederation appears to have originated with Connecticut, who was anxious to strengthen herself against encroachments from the Dutch. In August, 1637, after the close of the Pequotwar, some of the ministers and magistrates of that colony came to Boston to attend the synod called to consider the theological errors spread through the country by the Antinomians. While they were here a meeting was appointed " to agree upon some articles of confederation, and notice was given to Plymouth that they might join in it; but their warning was so short as they could not come."* Nothing, therefore, was done, and the matter rested until June, 1638, when a plan of confederation was partially agreed on; but this plan finally failed to obtain the necessary ratifications. It was afterward claimed by Massachusetts, and denied by Connecticut, that the chief obstacle was the levying of a duty by the latter, as has been mentioned in another place, on vessels passing the fort at Saybrook.^ At the close of the negotiations the Deputy-Governor of Connecticut wrote a letter in the name of their Court, which Winthrop characterizes as so harsh in its tone as to preclude a reply; but, in order to prevent an open rupture, the latter wrote a private letter to the Governor of Connecticut, stating our view of the case, and pointing out the mistakes of the Connecticut authorities. Commenting on this .transaction he adds : ** These and the like miscarriages in point of correspondency were conceived to arise from these two errors in their government: (i) They chose divers scores men who had no learning nor judgment which might fit them for those affairs, though otherwise holy and religious. (2) By occasion hereof the main burden for managing of State business fell upon some one or other of their ministers (as the phrase and style of these letters will clearly discover), who, though they were men of singular wisdom and godliness, yet, stepping out of their course, their actions wanted that blessing which otherwise might have been expected." * The scheme was again revived in the early part of the follow- , ing year, when Haynes, the Governor of Connecticut, Hooker, her most prominent minister, an(^others came to Boston, and stayed a month. They were unwilling, however, to move in the matter, though the idea of union was favorably entertained by Massachusetts ; ' and again it failed to be consummated.

Here the matter stood until September, 1642, when Connecticut sent new propositions for forming a confederacy.* These propositions were referred to the magistrates in and near Boston, and to the deputies from Boston and the neighboring towns, to confer with any commissioners from Plymouth, Connecticut, or New Haven, and to take such action as might be thought necessary, '* so as they enter not into an offensive war without order of this Court." ^ Winter was then approaching, and nothing more was done until the following spring; but at the General Court in May, 1643, commissioners appeared from Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, accompanied by George Fenwick, of Saybrook.* On their arrival the General Court appointed a committee, consisting of the Governor and five others, " to treat witli our friends of Connecticut, New Haven, and Plymouth about a confederacy between us." '* The result of the discussions was that, in two or three meetings, articles of union were agreed on, and signed by all the commissioners except those from Plymouth, who were only authorized to treat, but not to sign any agreement. The articles of confederation were then submitted to the Courts of the several colonies and duly ratified by them. The settlements in Maine under the patent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges '* were not received nor called into the confederation," says Winthrop, *' because they ran a different course from us both in their ministiy and civil administration."' Probably not one of the colonies would have been wilh'ng to unite with Rhode Island. Early in 1642 Governor Bradford, of Plymouth, wrote to Bellingham, the Governor of Massachusetts : '* Concerning the Islanders, we have no conversing with them, nor desire to have, further than necessity or humanity may require."* Massachusetts had already declared her unwillingness to join with Rhode Island in any confederacy.

The act of union bears the date of May 19, 1643, Old Style, and recites in words that ought not to be forgotten the reasons which moved the colonies to take this important step, - the precedent for a far more important union which separated a larger confederation from the mother country. It declares that, " Whereas, we all came into these parts of America with one and the same end and aim, namely, to advance the kingdom of our Lx>rd Jesus Christ, and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel in purity with peace ; and whereas, in our settling (by a wise providence of God) we are further dispersed upon the sea-coasts and rivers than was at first intended, so that we cannot, according to our desire, with convenience communicate in one government and jurisdiction ; and whereas, we live encompassed with people of several nations and strange languages, which hereafter may prove injurious to us or our posterity ; and forasmuch as the natives have formerly committed sundry insolences and outrages upon several plantations of the English, and have of late combined themselves against us ; and seeing by reason of those sad distractions in England which they have heard of, and by which they know we are hindered from that humble way of seeking advice, or reaping those comfortable fruits of protection which at other times we might well expect: We therefore do conceive it our bounden duty without delay to enter into a present consociation amongst ourselves for mutual help and strength in all our future concernments, that as in nation and religion, so in other respects, we be and continue one according to the tenor and true meaning of the ensuing articles. Wherefore it is fully agreed and concluded by and between the parties or jurisdictions above named, and they jointly and severally do by these presents agree and conclude, that they all be, and henceforth be called by the name of, the United Colonies of New England."'

Then followed eleven articles, commonly counted with the preamble as twelve. Of these, the first - numbered II. in the Plymouth copy of the Articles of Confederation - simply declared that the United Colonies jointly and severally united into a firm and perpetual league, both offensive and defensive, " for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the Gospel, and for their. own mutual safety and welfare." The next article provided that each colony should have exclusive jurisdiction within its own territory ; that no new member should be admitted into the confederation, and no two colonies should be united under one government, without the consent of the rest. Provision was made by the next article that the charge of all just wars, oflTensive or defensive, in which any member should be involved, should be borne by all the colonies in proportion to the number of male inhabitants in each between the ages of sixteen and sixty. The fifth article provided that if either of the colonies should be invaded, the others, upon notice and request of any three magistrates of the invaded colony, should forthwith send aid, - Massachusetts sending one hundred armed men, and each of the other colonies forty-five, if so many should be required.^ At the next meeting of the commissioners the cause of the invasion was to be duly considered, and if it should appear that the colony invaded was in fault, no part of the cost of the war was to be charged to the other colonies. If any colony should anticipate an invasion, and there should be sufficient time to call the commissioners together, a meeting was to be summoned by any three magistrates of the colony so threatened. The next three articles provided that there should be two commissioners for each colony, to meet once a year, - the first two meetings being held at Boston, the third at Hartford, the fourth at New Haven, and the fifth at Plymouth. Boston was always to be the place of meeting for two consecutive years. The concurrent votes of six of the commissioners were to be sufficient to secure the adoption of any measure ; but if six members failed to agree, the matter was to be referred to the four General Courts, and the agreement of all the Courts became necessary. A president was to be chosen at each meeting, whose duties and powers were to be merely those of a presiding officer. The commissioners were specially empowered " to frame and establish agreements and orders in general cases of a civil nature, wherein all the plantations are interested for preserving peace among themselves, and preventing as much as may be all occasions of war or differences with others ; " and express stipulations were also made for the rendition of fugitives from service or justice. By the ninth article, the confederate colonies bound themselves not to undertake a war, except in a sudden emergency, without the consent of six commissioners; and no charge for even a defensive war was to be made on any of the colonics, until the commissioners had met and approved of the war, and agreed on the proper amount of money to be levied. The tenth article provided that in extraordinary occasions, if any of the commissioners after ^ being summoned failed to appear, four of the commissioners should have power to direct a war which could not be delayed, and to send for the several quotas of men ; but to approve of the war, or allow the cost, or "cause any levies to be made of commissioners to negotiate and judge in colonies, yet are the M^iHachmcU far from detransacting of affairs concerning iieace and war serting them,*' for the same," required the votes of not less than six members. The eleventh article provided against infractions of the agreement ; and by the last article it was agreed that if the General Court of Plymouth should not ratify the articles of confederation, they should nevertheless be binding on the other three colonies.* These articles were signed on the 19th of May, Old Style, by the Secretary in behalf of the General Court of Massachusetts, and by the commissioners for Connecticut and New Flaven. Subsequently the articles were approved by the General Court of Plymouth, and by all the townships in that colony ; and by an order dated the 29th of August, Edward Winslow and William Collycr were authorized to ratify them, and were appointed commissioners for Plymouth. The 19th of May, however, was regarded by all parties as the date of the formation of the confederacy ; and in 1843, the 29th of May, which is the corresponding date, as we reckon time, was selected by the Massachusetts Historical Society for their bicentennial celebration of this great event in New England history.*