1220-1

OPPOSITION IN PARLIAMENT.

33

They expected by this means, in their own words, 'to induce every reasonable man in and about them (these towns), affecting the public good or a regular proceeding in the business of trade, to embrace a uniformity, and to join in a community or joint-stock together.'1

A company which had no better assurance than this for its capital was little likely to carry out any schemes which involved much immediate outlay. As a natural consequence, the new corporation never attempted to rival the enterprise of the Virginia Company, and contented itself with the position of a large landholder whose income is derived from letting or selling his territory.

in Parlia

The attempt to enforce their right of monopolizing trade at once brought down a storm of opposition Opposition upon the new corporation. Since Southampton ment. was a patentee, one can hardly suppose that the Virginia Company continued actively hostile to its younger rival. But the battle against monopolies was then at its height, and the choice of Buckingham as the President of the Plymouth Company, and the presence of Mompesson, the great monopolist, among its members, could not fail to quicken the popular feelings against the corporation. During the session of 1621 a bill was brought in for preventing extortions and tithes on fishing. There is nothing to show that this was specially aimed at the New England Company, but it in some manner foreshadowed the great attack which followed. The bill apparently passed the Commons,

Ib.

2 The fact of these bills having been brought in, with some details of the discussions which followed, is preserved in the journals of the House of Commons. Gorges' own appearance before Parliament is told by him in a rather confused manner (pp. 66-71). I do not feel quite certain whether his description refers to his appearance before the House in 1621 or to a second appearance three years later.

II.

Ꭰ

but was thrown out by the Lords. Later in the session a more definite bill was brought in to give freer liberty of fishing on the coast of America, with special mention of Virginia and New England. The chief object of the bill was to make public the right of fishing on the American coast, and also to allow those who exercised that right to land and get firewood. The bill was opposed by Guy, a Bristol merchant, who had under a patent settled a colony in Newfoundland. The discussion which followed has been preserved, and is of great interest. On the one side the enemies of the Company, prominent among whom was Sir Edward Coke, urged the impropriety of allowing a great natural resource like the sea-fisheries to be made a monopoly. On the other side it was shown clearly and forcibly that the choice lay between colonization or free fishing, and that the two were incompatible. As regarded the immediate question, there was justice in each view. On the one hand it seemed nonstrous that an undertaking of great public importance should be hindered by a few lawless and disorderly men. On the other hand it was obviously undesirable that a national industry like fishing should be at the mercy of a small and irresponsible body. During the course of the debate a question of considerable constitutional interest was raised; the right, namely, of Parliament to legislate for a colony. It does not seem, however, that any definite opinion was expressed on this point or that any precedent was established.

In November a more direct attack was made on the New England patent. The committee for inquiring into and presenting grievances summoned Gorges, or, in his absence, his representatives, to appear before them. Here, unfortunately, the extant Parliamentary records fail us, and we are left to the confused and necessarily one-sided report of Gorges himself. He pointed out the

1619-21

ILL SUCCESS OF THE COMPANY.

35

importance of his colonial schemes and the impossibility of effecting anything while the fishermen were allowed to exasperate the natives by fraudulent dealings or to sell them arms. In spite of Gorges' representations, the New England monopoly held a prominent place on the list of grievances presented to the King. The patent, however, was saved by the adjournment of Parliament, and for the present Gorges and his associates were allowed to pursue their schemes unmolested. In the meantime the Company seemed in more danger from its own inherent. weakness than from the attacks of its enemies. Hunt's outrage had borne fruit. Dermer, who had been Smith's colleague in the voyage of 1615, and whose skill and knowledge of the country were highly valued by the Company, had been wounded in an affray with the savages, and soon after died in Virginia. Another ship'scaptain whom the Company had sent out had fallen. less creditably in a tavern brawl in the same colony.3

The new corporation failed to enlist any of that enthusiasm, whether in merchant, missionary, or soldier of fortune, which had seconded the efforts of the Virginia Company. Help, however, was at hand, though of a kind which men like Gorges distrusted and despised. At a later day, when events might have taught him otherwise, he wrote of New England that he did not despair of means to make it appear that it would yield both profit and content to as many as aimed thereat, these being truly for the most part the motives that all men labour, howsoever otherwise adjoined (sic) with fair colors and goodly shadows.' 4 In the same spirit Smith disclaimed the idea that any other motive than wealth. will ever erect there a commonwealth.'5

6

The shallowness of such prophecies was soon to be made manifest. We must go back to those little

1 Gorges, p. 71.

▲ Ib. p. 57.

2 Ib. p. 63.

3 Ib. p. 62.

5 Smith's Description, p. 212.

congregations of English Independents among which the seminal principles of self-government had been gaining The Inde- the powers needed for a great task. That new

pendent congrega

tions of Eastern England.

congregational system which has been already described seems to have been confined to the eastern and east-midland counties, and had taken especially firm root in the border districts of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. Hitherto the colonizing energy of England had shown itself in the western counties. Henceforth, through the influence of Puritanism, they fall into the background. By a singular chance the name of the first Puritan settlement bears witness to the maritime importance of Devonshire, but there the connexion of the West of England with the Northern colonies ended. The distinctive peculiarities of the New Englander are directly inherited from East Anglia, from a land, that is, where successive migrations of German and Scandinavian conquerors had wiped out all trace of the earlier Celtic occupant. In this the settlement of New England did but follow that law by which in almost every important movement the eastern half of this island has asserted its lasting supremacy.

Proposed

During the reign of Elizabeth the distressed nonconformist had bethought him of the land beyond the Atlantic as a refuge. A petition is yet extant in Puritan which a congregation of Independents, falsely emigration about 1590. called Brownists,' asks leave from the Queen to remove to a foreign and far country which lieth to the west, and there remaining to be accounted her Majesty's faithful and loving subjects.' Their courage and loyalty were in advance of their geographical knowledge, since they mention as one of the advantages of the scheme that they may settle in Canada and greatly annoy the bloody and persecuting Spaniard in the Bay of Mexico.'1

This petition is among the State Papers (Calendar of Domestic State Papers, 1591-4, p. 400). It is not dated.

1597-1604

SECTARIES TRANSPORTED TO AMERICA.

37

It is possible that an order of the Privy Council, issued in 1597, may have referred to some of these petitioners. The order is an answer to the petition of certain ship masters who were about to send two vessels to Newfoundland, one to winter in the country. They have asked leave to transport 'divers artificers and persons that are noted to be sectaries, whose minds are continually in an ecclesiastical ferment.' Leave was given to take four of these persons. They were to bind themselves not to serve the King's enemies, and not to return to the realm till they should reform themselves, and live in obedience to the ecclesiastical laws. That they contemplated something of a permanent settlement is shown by the entry that they were to take household stuff and implements.' The voyage made in the Chancewell and the Hopewell is fully recorded in Hakluyt's Collection. The vessels separated. The Chancewell fell in with pirates, and fared so ill at their hands that the scheme of settlement was abandoned. Though nothing came of this scheme for Puritan colonization, it is not unlikely that the project lived on in the minds of some of its proposers, and had its share in bringing about the efforts of the next century.

Dealings of James I. and Ban

The persecuted Puritan had for the present to content himself with less ambitious schemes of emigration. If his prospects seemed for a moment to brighten with the accession of a king trained in Presbyterianism, the result of the Hampton Court Conference at once dispelled the illusion. James had once publicly fought the battle of Calvin against Arminius; but he had no sympathy with those theories of Church government which were almost

croft with the Puri

tans.

1 I owe my knowledge of this entry in the Privy Council Journal to Mr. Waddington (vol. ii. p. 114). He assumes, I think without evidence, that these four emigrants were among the above-mentioned petitioners.

2 Vol. iii. p. 242.