has a special attraction, as showing how the constitutional principles of his own country may be adapted and developed in altered conditions of life. Besides this, it has another peculiar interest. In New England we can see the unchecked working of a principle whose operation in England was modified and balanced by other influences. The reformation of religion in England was not an isolated movement; it was but one of various forms in which a great national awakening showed itself. It had nothing in common with some of those forms; with some it was actively at war. But though the English Puritan might abhor the Renaissance and its works, he could not wholly sever himself from them, any more than he could free himself from the religious and political associations which surrounded him from infancy. While the Puritan saw daily before him the relics of medieval piety, while his thirst for religious knowledge brought him under the spell of the new learning and its manifold culture, Calvinism could not wholly have dominion over him. The writings of Milton show how English Puritanism was forced to assume a width of view alien to its true nature. In America it was otherwise. Whatever praise, whatever blame attaches to New England in its early day must be set down to Puritanism. When it triumphed it triumphed of its own unaided strength; where it failed it failed from its own insufficiency and narrowness.

CHAPTER II.

THE PLYMOUTH PILGRIMS.1

As English history really opens amid the scenes and institutions described by Tacitus, before any English invader had set foot on the shores of Britain, so it is with the Puritan colonies. The constitutional history of New England, in truth, began when the first congregation of English Nonconformists. came into being. The revolt from the Papacy had not

Organization of the Independents.

1 The authorities for this chapter naturally resolve themselves into two groups: (1) Those who deal with the attempts to settle to the north of Cape Cod, between 1602 and 1620, and with the restoration of the Plymouth Company; (2) those bearing on the history of the Puritan settlers. The authorities for the voyages between 1602 and 1607 have been already referred to (Virginia, &c., pp. 140-3). They are mostly published in Purchas, and are republished in the Massachusetts Historical Society's Collection, 3rd series, vol. viii. Of Popham's attempted colony we have a full account in Strachey's Travayle into Virginia Britannia. John Smith's explorations are described in two pamphlets written by him. The first, published in 1616, is entitled A Description of New England; the second, called New England's Trials, was published in 1622. Both were originally printed in London, and are included in the second volume of Force's collection. They are also in the new and complete edition of Smith's works published by Mr. Arber in 1884. All my references to Smith in this volume are to that edition. Sir Ferdinando Gorges' Description of New England is a valuable contemporary record of all the events of New England history in which the writer himself took part. Unfortunately the style is often careless and obscure, and the chronology confused. It was originally published by the author's namesake and grandson in a collection entitled America Painted to the Life. The description is republished in the Massachusetts Historical Collection, 3rd series, vol. vi. The Plymouth Company two years after its revival published a tract called A Brief Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New England. It is republished in the Massachusetts Historical Collection, 2nd series, vol. ix.

Our knowledge of the Plymouth Puritans is derived mainly from the

INDEPENDENT ORGANIZATION.

15

gone far when the gulf between the moderate and the thoroughgoing reformers showed itself. The revival of

In

writings of Bradford and Winslow. I have in my text spoken fully of both writers. Bradford's history remained in manuscript till the present century. It had been given up as lost, but was discovered by Mr. Young about 1840, and has been edited and published by Mr. Charles Dean, in 1856, as the third volume of the fourth series of the Massachusetts Historical Collection. referring to it I have throughout quoted the original pagination. It served as the basis for New England's Memorial, published by Nathaniel Morton in 1669. Indeed, the greater part of Morton's work is no more than an abridgement of Bradford's.

Bradford's letter-book, published in the 1st series of the Massachusetts Historical Collection, vol. iii., contains much that is valuable. Except Bradford's history, almost everything that bears on the early history of Plymouth has been published, either in the Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, by Alexander Young (Boston, 1844), or in the modern edition of New England's Memorial (Boston, 1855). One of the ablest and most highly-educated men among the Plymouth settlers, Edward Winslow, has left three pamphlets containing much valuable material. The earliest in subject, though not in date of production, is a controversial work entitled Hypocrisy Unmasked, published in London in 1646. The main substance of this pamphlet is an attack upon one Samuel Gorton. This will come before us again. But to this is appended an account of the emigration from Leyden. Winslow also published A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth (London, 1622), and another pamphlet, entitled Good News from New England, in 1624. These three pamphlets are all given by Mr. Young. My references to Winslow, unless otherwise expressed, are to this reprint. There is besides among the Colonial Papers a memorial from Winslow addressed to the Privy Council, containing some interesting information about his doings in New England.

Prince's Chronological History of New England is a trustworthy compilation from early authorities. So much of the work as came down to 1630 was published in one volume in 1736. The rest appeared in a fragmentary form, and was republished in the second series of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. vii. The whole of Prince's work was edited by Mr. Drake, and published in 1852. My references are to this edition. The Records of Plymouth have been published in a complete form in twelve volumes, edited partly by Mr. N. B. Shurtleff, partly by Mr. D. Pulsifer. They extend from the foundation of the colony down to its incorporation with Massachusetts in 1692. The Rev. Joseph Hunter, in his Founders of New Plymouth, has collected all that can be learnt about the Independent church at Scrooby, its flight to Holland and sojourn there. Another very valuable authority has lately come to light. It is a document bought in 1875 by the British Museum, and entitled A Description of New England. It bears neither date nor the name of the author, but it was evidently written in 1660 or 1661, since the writer refers to the execution of the three Quakers last year.' It may also be assumed, I think, as certain, as it is assumed by Mr. Dean, who

letters did much to break down the boundaries of race and country, and the persecuted English Protestant constantly had dealings with the reformed churches of Holland, Germany, and Switzerland. Congregations of foreign refugees in London and Norwich enjoyed by the special permission of the Crown their own discipline and worship, and must have served as a model and an encouragement to English Nonconformists. The first introduction of the congregational system in England is necessarily obscure, inasmuch as the movement, if not unlawful, was so far opposed to the wishes of those in power as to make secrecy expedient. In 1567 a small has edited the pamphet, that Maverick was the author. The writer speaks of himself as having, in 1625, built and fortified the ancientest house in the Massachusetts government.' No settlement except Maverick's answers to that description. Hostility to Massachusetts runs through the whole pamphlet, yet, as far as we can test the writer's statements by comparison with other authorities, they are accurate. Thus it has great value as the only contemporary account of New England from its earliest days, written from an anti-Puritan point of view. It preserves many details concerning the scattered settlements to the north of the Piscataqua.

Another authority, in some measure of the same kind, is Thomas Lechford. He was a London attorney, who got into trouble in England by supporting Prynne. He either was banished or fled to escape punishment. He reached New England in 1638. He had decided and peculiar views on Church government, and having quarrelled with Episcopalians in England he quarrelled with Nonconformists in America. He more than once incurred judicial censure for his attacks on the ecclesiastical system of Massachusetts. In 1642 he wrote a pamphlet called Plain Dealing in New England. It is a detailed account of the system of civil and ecclesiastical government in Massachusetts. It is clear that the writer was in sympathy with the general principles and aims of the colonists, but was a man given to exaggerate the importance of mere details and questions of procedure.

Plain Dealing was republished in the third series of the Massachusetts Historical Collection, vol. iii. A later edition was published in 1867 with an introduction and notes, both very full and of great value, by J. H. Trumbull. Though Lechford mentions Plymouth, his place is among Massachusetts writers.

Morton's New English Canaan is likewise an anti-Puritan account of early New England history, but it has little authoritative value. I shall have occasion to speak of the author and his work in my text. The book has been admirably edited for the Prince Society by Mr. C. F. Adams. His preface is an exceedingly valuable monograph upon all the subjects on which Morton's history touches.

1567-75

INDEPENDENT ORGANIZATION.

17

Independent congregation with a pastor and deacon of its own was set up in London. Two years later another and, as it would seem, a larger body, established itself at Wandsworth.1

These were followed by other bodies of the same kind, styled conventicles. Side by side with these sprang up certain so-called Prophesyings, or organizations for moral and religious instruction, not, indeed, professedly opposed to the Church, but independent of it, and hostile to the spirit of Anglicanism. When the conventicles and prophesyings were suppressed by the authority of the Crown, an attempt was made to combine the objects of both in an organization which should be within the pale of civil and ecclesiastical law. This was to be effected by a system of discipline established in the eastern and midland counties. Assemblies of clergy were held, at which ecclesiastical matters were discussed and rules of practical discipline framed, independent of the authority of the Church of England, and sometimes in opposition to it. Afterwards meetings were held in London, with precautions for secrecy. There, under the direction of two eminent Nonconformist divines, Cartwright and Travers, a code was drawn up for the guidance of such parish clergymen as chose to adopt it. This has been described by a friendly writer as an attempt to introduce a reformation into the Church without a separation,' by a hostile one as a scheme for breeding up Presbytery under the wing of Episcopacy.' 3

This was to be done by instituting a voluntary

1 Waddington's History of Congregational Government, 1869-80. This writer has worked out with great care the early history of the Nonconformist congregations in England.

2 Neal, History of the Puritans, ed. 1754, vol. i., p. 233. A full account of this organization is given in a pamphlet written by Bancroft, the future Archbishop, in 1593, and entitled Dangerous Positions and Proceedings.

3 Heylin, History of the Presbyterians, ed. 1670, p. 300.