self-government was carried, and also the manner in which the disfranchised inhabitants were regarded. It was enacted that each township should elect the captain of its own train-band. The captains themselves were to be church-members, but all the inhabitants were to be electors.1

Chris

topher

A community which openly and avowedly repressed liberty of thought was not likely to be lenient in dealing with liberty of speech. Puritanism emanciGardiner. pated and dominant was every whit as ruthless as those whom it denounced as the agents of Antichrist. No doubt such a community as Massachusetts was exposed to special dangers. It can hardly be taken as a proof of severity that Morton was arrested and sent to England. At the same time his house was solemnly burnt in the sight of the Indians, as a punishment for the wrongs that he had done them. He was not the only adventurous profligate whose presence disconcerted the Puritan commonwealth. In 1631 a certain Gardiner, calling himself, with questionable right, Sir Christopher, appeared in the colony. It may be doubted whether his moral shortcomings as a bigamist or the suspicion which attached to him as a possible emissary and spy from Gorges told most against him. The authorities dealt with him on both counts. In addition to the two wives in Europe, he had rashly brought a mistress with him to New England, whom he endeavoured to pass off as a kinswoman. He at first evaded a party sent to arrest him; his companion, however, was captured. When examined she made a singularly ill-judged attempt to benefit her protector by averring that he was a nephew of the persecutor, Bishop Gardiner. It was probably fortunate for the criminal that chronology proved the improba1 Records, vol. i. p. 2 Winthrop, vol. i.

188.

p. 34, and note; Dudley in Young, M. C., p. 322.

1631-2

PUNISHMENT OF MALCONTENTS.

149

bility of such unpropitious kinship. The woman being 'impenitent and close,' 'order was taken to send her to the two wives in Old England, to search her further; a measure which no doubt served the joint purpose of examination and punishment.1 Gardiner himself was soon afterwards arrested, and his letters from Gorges seized. The details of the correspondence are not recorded, but it was thought to forebode danger to the colony, and, like Morton, the writer was banished.2

of other malcontents.

If the punishment of such worthless profligates had stood by itself, it could not have done much harm to Treatment the colony in public opinion. opinion. But, unluckily, the government of Massachusetts was in other ways making for itself an evil name. Not a year passed without some fresh tidings coming from the colony of men being punished for seditious or heretical speeches. In the summer of 1631 one Ratcliffe was flogged, punished by cropping his ears, and banished for speaking evil of the government.3 Soon after Henry Lynne was sentenced to a like punishment, save that he was to be spared personal mutilation. His offence was writing slanderous letters about the colony to those in England. In his case, apparently, the penalty of banishment was remitted.5 Next year Thomas Knower was set in the bilboes for threatening that if the Court punished him he would lodge an appeal in England. The report of such proceedings could have but one effect. Men would say,

1 The arrest of Gardiner's mistress is told by Dudley in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln. This was written just before the arrest of Gardiner himself.

2 Winthrop, vol. i. pp. 54, 57.

3 Records, vol. i. p. 86; Winthrop, vol. i. p. 56.

4 Records, vol. i. p. 91; Winthrop, vol. i. p. 61.

5 Mr. Savage shows by reference to the records that a Henry Lynne was living in the colony in 1632 and in 1636 (Records, p. 102).

some with complacency, others with disappointment, that the denouncers of persecution had turned persecutors. Doubtless the Massachusetts Puritans might urge, probably with more truth than plausibility, that England and America were different places, and that what was persecution in the one country was but selfdefence in the other. But mankind generally take little heed of such pleas. To most men in England who had no special bias of creed or party, the Puritan was a man who had clamoured for freedom as long as freedom was likely to serve his own ends, and who now imitated the practices which he had himself once denounced. The generality of Englishmen probably thought with Blackstone, that an emigrant to Massachusetts only exchanged the tyranny of the bishops for the tyranny of the brethren.

THREE EPOCHS IN NEW ENGLAND HISTORY. 151

Three

epochs

CHAPTER IV.

ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE ANTINOMIANS.'

THE history of New England during the seventeenth century resolves itself into three successive epochs. The first is that which we have already surveyed, and which we may call the period of Puritan colonization. That came to an end when Plymouth and Massachusetts took their place as

in New England history.

1 Winthrop continues to be our chief authority. The writings of Roger Williams, including his private letters, have been published with a prefatory memoir by Mr. R. A. Guild, by the Narragansett Historical Society. They form six volumes. From these we can form a very definite idea of Williams' character and opinions. More than one life of Williams has been written. The best probably is that by Mr. R. Elton. A good sketch of Williams is given in a note to the Ecclesiastical History of Massachusetts, by John Elliot, published in the ninth and tenth volumes of Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections (first series). The whole history is clear, well arranged, and fair. Unfortunately none of the biographers of Williams had access to all his writings. Their fulness and autobiographical character make the absence of a thoroughly satisfactory life less to be regretted than it is in many cases. The history of the Antinomian controversy is very fully, and on the whole fairly, told by Winthrop. It was also the subject of a partisan pamphlet by Thomas Welde, minister of Roxbury. It is entitled A short story of the rise, reign, and ruin of Antinomians, Familists, and Libertines that infected the Churches of New England (London, 1644). The style of the work may be guessed from the title. The peculiar and discreditable circumstances of its production are fully told by the editor of Winthrop (vol. i. p.218, n). An answer to Welde was published under the title of the Mercurius Americanus. It has been ascribed to Wheelwright, but the authorship seems doubtful. Whoever may be the author, the production does him no credit. It is captious and petty, full of far-fetched sarcasms and cumbrous would-be pleasantries. It was republished, together with Wheelwright's fast-day sermon (p. 175), for the Prince Society, in Boston, in 1876, with a prefatory

securely established communities. The second was that during which the parent stock of Massachusetts threw out offshoots. These in turn developed constitutional systems of their own, like that of the mother colony, yet not wholly identical. At the same time the internal character of Massachussetts was sensibly influenced by the series of events which led to this process of expansion, and also by the reaction of the newly formed communities on herself. This is the stage on which we have now to enter. There is yet a third and later stage, in which the various members thus created were joined into one connected whole, bound together partly by the formal union of a federal constitution, but still more by identity of origin, principles, and interests, and by likeness of attitude towards the mother country.

In the first stage, that which we have already traversed, religious influences have been all-important. They are scarcely less so in that on which we now enter. The settlement of Newhaven and that of the various colonies which were united to form Rhode Island were due wholly to spiritual motives. Secular objects had a larger share in the settlement of Connecticut, but they did not stand alone. The need for mutual help and support forced the New England colonies into union, but the limits and conditions of that union were in great part determined by the religious doctrines and practices of the various provinces.

memoir by Mr. Charles H. Bell. At this stage of New England history we begin to derive great help from the numerous collections of original documents which exist, most of them preserved in the publications of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Some documents of value are preserved in Hutchinson's Collection of Original Papers relative to the History of Massachusetts (Boston, 1769). It was republished for the Prince Society in 1865. The original pagination is preserved.

Another collection of great value for the early history of the colonies generally, and more especially for that of New England, is the Collection of Original Papers, published in 1792, by Ebenezer Hazard.