behalf of Gorges. He succeeded in raising an armed force of a hundred men. With these he confronted Cleves at the General Court of the colony, and demanded that he should produce Rigby's title. When this had been done, Joscelyn and his adherents lodged a protest against Rigby's authority, and charged Cleves to recognise them as the authorised representatives of Gorges. According to the testimony of a witness whose sympathies were on the side of Cleves, the whole proceeding was orderly.1

Both parties now appealed to the government of Massachusetts. In the spring of 1646 the question was

The case tried at Boston.

It

tried at Boston, by a special jury empanelled for the purpose by the General Court. Cleves and Tucker appeared for Rigby, Joscelyn and Roberts for Gorges. Cleves failed to make good his case. did not seem clear that the Plough Patent really took in the territory claimed. Moreover, the transfer was only executed by two out of the eight patentees. On the other hand, Joscelyn could only produce a copy of Gorges' patent, which was not held to be legal evidence. The jury accordingly declared themselves unable to find a verdict.2

Parlia

Commis

sioners.

Rigby next brought the matter before the Parliamentary Commissioners for Plantations. Here he fared Decision of better. They not merely accepted his claim, mentary but, if we may believe Winthrop, they even extended his southern boundary twenty miles further than he would himself have placed it.3 cording to this decision, Wells, Casco, and Cape Porpoise formed one colony under the proprietorship of Rigby, while Gorges was left with Agamenticus, Saco, and Kittery.

Ac

1 The whole of this proceeding is fully described in a letter written by Thomas Jenner, the Puritan minister at Saco, to Winthrop, May 6, 1646. It is in the Mass. Hist. Coll., 4th series, vol. vii. p. 359.

* These proceedings are fully told by Winthrop (vol. ii. p. 256). $ Ib. p. 320.

1847-9

affairs in

Maine.1

STATE OF AFFAIRS IN MAINE.

409

Practically, it made but little difference under what territorial jurisdiction the colony was placed. In 1647 State of the settlers in the southern province heard of the death of Gorges. They thereupon wrote to his heirs for instructions. But the confused state of affairs in England prevented them from receiving an answer. Another application in the next year fared no better. Accordingly, in July 1649, the settlers of the three townships met at Agamenticus, and formally declared themselves a body politic. A Governor with a council of five were to be elected every year. Godfrey was chosen Governor, with, for the present, four Councillors, one from Agamenticus and three from Kittery. The same records which tell us of this contain entries which throw some light on the social life of the little community. They show us that religion and order were in no wise neglected. One Potum is prosecuted by a grand jury for leading an idle, lazy life.' Another offender of the like kind is sentenced to receive twenty lashes. Adam Goodwin is presented for denying the morality of the fourth commandment, and the Selectmen of Kittery for neglecting to have the children of their town educated and taught the catechism.

Annexa

tion of

Massachu

setts.

Hitherto Massachusetts had shown no anxiety to extend its possessions beyond the Piscataqua. But, looking at the dealings of the government with Mason's Maine by colony, and at their later conduct towards Maine, we may be almost sure that they had been biding their time, in the well-founded hope that circumstances would throw the townships north of the Piscataqua into their hands. The process was almost an exact repetition of that by which New Hampshire had been absorbed. There was doubtless a sense of weakness and uncertainty which impelled many of the settlers to seek a

1 I have taken my account of what follows from the extracts from the records of Maine, published in the Mass. Hist. Coll. (1st series, vol. i. p. 101).

union with their stronger neighbour. The Massachusetts government again advanced the plea which had served them before, and urged that their northern boundary was the extreme point to which any tributary stream of the Merrimac could be traced. The government of Maine met the demand of Massachusetts by a plea which could not fail to offend that colony. They contended that the quo warranto issued in 1637 had overthrown. the Massachusetts charter, and all the territorial rights which it carried with it. Against this the Massachusetts government pleaded that the surrender of the great Plymouth charter had nullified all grants that depended on it, that to Gorges among them.1

In October 1651 three commissioners from Boston, Bradstreet, Hathorne, and Denison, went to Kittery to assert the claims of the government and demand submission.2 Those who remained loyal to the heir of Gorges, or who were adverse to union with their Puritan neighbours, petitioned Parliament to resist this encroachment.3 Winslow however was now in England to urge the claims of Massachusetts. Even without his advocacy it is unlikely that Parliament would have favoured the adherents of the fallen royalist. For a year the dispute went on between Godfrey and the Massachusetts government. But to such a contest there could only be one end. The Massachusetts government went through the somewhat meaningless form of ordering a fresh survey of their northern boundary. Upon receiving the surveyors' report they again sent commissioners to Kittery. The settlers there seem to have at once submitted. All grants

1 This plea and counter-plea are set forth in a letter from Edward Rawson, secretary to the Court of Massachusetts, in answer to Godfrey. The letter is in Hazard (vol. i. p. 564).

2 Mass. Records, vol. iv. pt. i. p. 70.

3 This petition is published in Williamson's History of Maine, 1832 (vol. i. p. 331). 。 Ib. P. 109.

4 Mass. Records, vol. iv. pt. i. p.

98.

1652-5

MASSACHUSETTS INCORPORATES MAINE.

411

of land were confirmed, the town was allowed two representatives, and all who would take the oath of a freeman were admitted to the franchise. The rights of the citizens were further guarded by a special stipulation that they should not be required to attend any military training beyond the limits of the township.1

3

The commissioners then went on to Agamenticus, and received the submission of the inhabitants, Godfrey among them, on like terms.2 For the present no steps were taken towards incorporating Wells. But in the next year the Court of Massachusetts completed the process of annexation. If Massachusetts had a valid claim to Gorges' province, she had an equally valid one to Rigby's. The line which she claimed as her northern boundary took in all the land occupied under the Plough Patent, just as much as it took in Kittery and Agamenticus. Rigby was now dead. The settlers, therefore, had to choose between the government of Cleves and the government of Massachusetts. There could be little doubt that annexation on such equitable terms as had been granted to Agamenticus and Kittery was better than isolation under a greedy and unscrupulous adventurer. Nevertheless the union was delayed for nearly two years. During the summer of 1653 the three townships of Saco, Cape Porpoise, and Wells submitted, and were incorporated on the same terms as the two southern settlements. Two years later a number of the inhabitants, headed by Cleves, made an ineffectual attempt to overturn this settlement. They first lodged a claim with the Court of Massachusetts. The Court refused to entertain this, urging the old plea as to the northern boundary.5 Thereupon Cleves or some of his

partisans brought the matter before the authorities in England. At the same time the opposite party, to the number of seventy, petitioned the Protector against any severance from Massachusetts. The paucity of those who signed in proportion to the whole population would lead one to think that there was a large number comparatively indifferent in the matter. The scattered settlements about Casco remained independent till 1658. In that year a formal submission to the Massachusetts government was executed by twenty-eight settlers, of whom half signed with a mark. They were to be united on the same terms as the other northern towns, and, like them, were to retain their civil privileges without any religious qualification.2

By this last incorporation the whole settled territory north of Plymouth came under the dominion of Massachusetts. The most noteworthy point about this process of expansion is the manner in which it broke down the system of religious disabilities. Each successive incorporation brought in a body of citizens who were not church-members. This must have increased the dissatisfaction of the disfranchised inhabitants in the older settlements, and accustomed the whole community to the separation of civil and religious privileges.

Disunion

among the Narra

In the meantime a curiously similar process had been going on in the Narragansett settlements. There too that which before and after formed a single province had been for a while divided in two. The severance of Rhode Island did not end in the annexation of the colony by Massachusetts, but such a result seemed at one time likely.

gansett

plan

tations.

The petition with the signatures is preserved in the Maine Historical Society's Collections (vol. i. p. 296). The petition itself is in the Hutchinson Collection (vol. ii. p. 30), but not the signatures. It speaks of several addresses lately made unto your highness by some gentlemen of worth for restitution of their right of jurisdiction over us.'

2 Mass. Records, vol. iv. pt. i. pp. 357–60.