p.383 CHAPTER XXIII.
REVIEW OF THE PERIOD.
In its beginnings colonial Maine seemed to possess advantages
that promised much for its development and prosperity. It had
prominent and powerful promoters, and they lost no time in ob-
taining a foothold here. The date of the arrival of the Popham
colonists at the mouth of the Kennebec, is only a little later
than that of the colonists who made their settlement at James-
town, Virginia. But the Popham Colony was a failure.
None of the colonists remained in the country when Gilbert and
the ships returned homeward. English fishermen and traders con-
tinued to make their way to the coast of Maine, but of settlers
little is heard for many years. As late as 1620, and for some
time afterward, Maine had no settlement that equalled in the
number of its inhabitants, that of the Pilgrim colony at Ply-
mouth.
Indeed, after the landing of the Puritans at Salem and Boston,
Massachusetts, colonial Maine had no rivals to the larger and
more prosperous communities within the limits of the Bay colony.
This was also true at the time when Massachusetts extended her
jurisdiction over the Maine settlements.
It may be properly asked, therefore, why, during the period
covered in these pages, were Maine settlements weak, lacking
elements of growth and stability, as compared with settlements
in other parts of New England territory?
ALL SETTLERS IN NEW ENGLAND HAD A COMMON ENGLISH ANCESTRY.
Certainly it was not because of racial differences in the
colonists, for all the settlers in New England in the first
half of the seventeenth century had a common ancestry. They
spoke the same language, and their political opinions were
developed under the same conditions. But they were not all
on the same side in the great movement toward democracy that
was in progress in the period now under review.
p.384 THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
A recent English historian1 tells us that "the sovereignty
of the people" and "the equality of man with man in the scales
of justice" were first ushered into the world of English poli-
tics, by the trial of King Charles I, that resulted in his
execution.
KING CHARLES HAD NO USE FOR THE "EQUALITY OF MAN".
As to the final act in the conflict between the King and the
House of Commons, this is true. King Charles had no use for
political principles that found expression in such notions as
"the sovereignty of the people" and "the equality of man with
man in the scales of justice". His own views concerning King
and people, he stated frankly, even bluntly, on the scaffold.
"For the people", he said, "truly I desire their liberty and
freedom as much as any body whatsoever; but I must tell you,
their liberty and freedom consists in having government, those
laws by which their lives and their goods may be most their own.
It is not their having a share in the government - that is
nothing appertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are
clearly different things.".2
To King Charles, these were old truths, needing, as he thought,
reaffirmation. For them he was ready to die. It has well been
said that "nothing in King Charle's life became him like the
manner in which he left it".2 In that solemn hour, he certainly
exhibited calm dignity and bravery. But in these last words,
the King correctly represented his attitude towards the people
over whom he had reigned so arbitrarily as to make his trial
necessary.4
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE - THE NEW DEMOCRACY.
Over against these old-world ideas that at length wrought the
ruin of the Stuarts, stood those of the new democracy, which
for a score or more of years had found voices in the House of
Commons, declaring the sovereignty of the people and the suprem-
macy of Parliament.5 It was a new democracy. It had its beginn-
ings
Footnotes. 1. George MacAulay Trevelyan, England under the
Stuarts, 281. 2. Ib., 289. 3. S. R. Gardiner, Puritan Revolu-
tion, 160. 4. "England must be brought under a settled govern-
ment; and a settled government, with King charles to stir up
discord against every element in the state in turn, was a sheer
impossibilty." Ib., 158. 5. Some voices were heard in the House
of Lords, but in the progress of the movement for democracy, the
influence of the Lords rapidly declines.
p.385 REVIEW OF THE PERIOD.
farther back than the trial of King Charles, however, and in the
interest of religious rather than civil liberty. Happily in places
on the continent of Europe, conditions were better at that time
than in England.
For example, when the Pilgrims, in the latter part of th 16th
century, left the land of their birth and crossed over into
Holland, it was because there, "they heard, was freedom of
religion for all men".1 But in English towns and villages,
the word, "freedom" was already stirring the thoughts of men,
and becoming forceful to such a degree as to call for action
and sacrifice. But before their departure for Holland, the need
of civil freedom must have been strongly impressed upon the
Pilgrims on account of the cruel, it might indeed be called
the brutal treatment they received from the civil authorities
in their experiences in getting out of England.2 During their
residence in Holland, however, their civil and religious ideals
were enlarged; and at length, looking for a new home in which
their ideals might have such fulfilment as they desired, the
Pilgrims crossed the sea and made the first permanent settle-
in New England. To what extent their ideals had been enlarged
during those year of exile on the continent, appears in the
opening words of their General Laws and Liberties, to which they
gave these fitting words of introduction:
At the time of the opening of the Long Parliament, November 3,
1640, it is estimated that one-half of the Peers supported the
King, while about thirty remained at Westminster and continued
to act with the majority of the House of Commons. But just be-
fore the execution of King Charles (January 29, 1649) the
House of Commons voted, "That the House of Peers is useless
and ought to be abolished." It was abolished.
"Not only was the abolition of the Upper House the necessary
preliminary to all reforms, it was justifiable by nature and
reason." The House of Lords During the Civil War, by Charles
Harding Firth, Regius Professor of Modern History at the Univ.
of Oxford, England, 213, 216.
Footnotes. 1. Bradford, Journal, 15. 2. These experiences are
quite fully related by Bradford in the early part of his Journal.
p.386 THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
"We, the associates of the Colony of New Plymouth, coming hither
as free-born subjects of the Kingdom of England, endowed with all
and singular privileges belonging to such, being assembled, do
enact, ordain and constitute that no act, impositon, law or
ordinance, be made or imposed upon us at present, or to come,
but such as shall be made or imposed by consent of the body of
freemen or associates, or their representatives legally
assembled, which is according to the free liberties of the
freeborn people of England".1
The causes of irritation that drove the Pilgrims out of England
in the closing years of Queen Elizabeth's reign were also force-
ful during the reign of her successor. Many of the most influent-
ial and conscientious of the conformist Puritans in the English
Church, felt compelled to leave it.
"About the year 1620, the storm began to brew. Strong Protestants
of all sections, were drawn together by a vague sense of approach-
ing peril, which thenceforth inspired every word and action of the
House of Commons ... so King James I, when he died (March 27, 1625),
left Protestants angry and suspicious, and bold in the conscious-
ness of representing public opinion."2 Conditions under King
Charles, however, were not better than under King James, but worse.
In the opening years of his reign, it was only too evident that he
would run a more irritating course than his father.
Accordingly, there was still unrest in English hearts and homes,
and when, at length this was aggravated by an outbreak of reli-
gious tryanny that became increasingly intolerable, the Puritans
followed the Pilgrims hither, 2 with the purpose, as John Winthrop
Footnotes. From a copy of these Laws and Liberties printed at
Cambridge in 1672, and now in the Maine Historical Society Library.
2. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, 149, 150. 3. "The men
who formed the strength of the anti-monarchical and the Puritan
part of the community were always contemplating emigration. England
sent enough of these elements to found a new world; but if the
war had gone differently, she would have sent out enough to ruin
herself. The most advantageous merchants, the most skilled arti-
sans, the Lords and
p.387 REVIEW OF THE PERIOD.
he said on the voyage over, "to seek out a place of cohabitation
and consorship under a due form of government, both civil and eccle-
siastical".1 By "due form of government" John Winthrop did not
mean a form characterized by such a measure of civil and religious
liberty as the descendants of Winthrop and his fellow voyagers now
enjoy. The full vision of that better day had not broken upon them.
But they soon framed a form of government here, which, with all its
shortcomings as we now see them, afforded a freedom from political
and ecclesiastical constraint greatly in advance of what they had
known hitherto, and which in time, under the protection of just
laws, would develop the principles of true freedom, civil and
religious, to an extent not before attained in the history of
civilization, and in the enjoyment of which, even in the beginn-
ings of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, they greatly prospered.
In this, indirectly, the Puritans of Massachusetts were greatly
aided by the course of events in England. Not all came hither
who were in agreement with them in their democratic aspirations.
Indeed there were many who still hoped that in some way King
Charles would be made to see how destructive to his own inter-
ests, as well as to those of the country, was the course he had
taken, and that at length he would recognize the necessity of
retracing his steps.
But the hope had no fulfilment, and more and more the conviction
was strengthened that "a King who had ruled so badly in the past
was incapable of ruling at all in the future".2 And so there
followed what is sometimes designated as the "Puritan Revolution",
and sometimes as the "Civil War" and sometimes as the "Great
Rebellion". King Charles drew to his standard the cavaliers,
including all those who for various reasons rallied to the support
of the King; while around Oliver Cromwell gathered the yeomen free-
holders,
Footnotes from previous page, continued -
gentlemen who took cousel for the liberties of their country, the
ploughmen who saw visions, the tinkers who dreamed dreams, were
perpetually thinking of New England.
Thither, twenty thousand Puritans had already carried their skills
and industry, their sliver and their gold, their strivings and
their hopes." Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, 225.
Footnotes. 1. The Puritan Age, Reverend Dr. George E. Ellis, 50.
2. S. R. Gardiner, The Puritan Revolution, 126.
p.388 THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
many of the smaller country squires, tenant farmers not a few,
some of the gentry and large numbers of the dwellers in cities
and towns, all inspired by the hope of securing better conditons
for themselves and their children. Generally it can be said that
the Puritan movement was the strongest in the eastern and middle
countries of England, while the King, although aided by devoted
Royalists and churchmen in towns and cathedral cities, relied
upon upon the support received from the southwestern counties.1
But the cause for which King Charles stood was a losing one. Ill
success attended his forces; and in the struggle until the fatal
close for the King, affairs on this side of the sea received no
attentiion. In this condition of things in England, the Puritans
of Massachusetts were left to develop in their own way, a form of
government based upon civil liberty and the sovereignty of the
people.
The colonists who came to Maine, however, were moved thereto by
other influences than were forceful in the establishment of the
Massachusetts Bay colony and other New England colonies.
The Popham colonists, on account of their early return homeward,
had no part in New England's development; but as they came hither
under influences that continued to be represented here, it is
noteworthy that those who were instrumental in their coming, were
in sympathy with the King, who, by his language and his acts, had
already irritated the Puritans of England in such a way2 as thus
early force an issue between King and Commons, that was finally
to be decided on memorable battlefields in a great crisis in the
history of the English people.
Very little is known concerning the settlers who had homes on
the Pemaquid peninsula in 1625, and at other places between
Pemaquid and the Kennebec at a later period. There are no
known facts that connect them with any movement in the mother
Footnotes. 1. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, 228.
2. Gorges, in a letter to Cecil, referring to the conditions
in England at the time of the Popham Colony, and urging the
importance of American colonization, to the English people, de-
scribes them as "now sick in despair and in time will grow des-
perate through necessity". Baxter, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, III, 162.
p.389 REVIEW OF THE PERIOD.
country like that which brought the Pilgrims and the Puritans to
New England. They seem to have represented no organized enter-
prise, but, so far as may be inferred from such information as
has been preserved, they made their way hither out of personal
considerations, some of them bringing their families, allured
in all probability by what they learned from traders and fisher-
men, who called their attention to favorable opportunities for
advantageous settlement upon the coast of Maine.
At the same time, in the Province of Maine, a few voices were
heard that indicate in those who uttered them, the presence of
the spirit of the Puritan movement in England.
Thus, when George Cleeve was told by John Winter, that he was a
trespasser at Spurwink, but might become a tenant to Trelawny on
some other part of the latter's Cape Elizabeth estate, Cleeve
showed plainly where he stood by his very democratic reply that
"he would be tenant to never any man in New England".1
So also a kindred spirit seems to have been manifested at
Richmond's Island in 1636, by the six men in Winter's employ,
who "fell into such a mutinay" that they left the plantation
"to fish for themselves." As Winter in reporting the case
to Trelawny, mentioned the names of the men, it is possible
to follow them and learn somewhat of their subsequent history.2
They all seem to have made their way to Portsmouth. The one whom
Winter called the leader of the party was evidently a member of
the Church of England, for he was one of the parishioners who
"founded and built" at Portsmouth, in 1640, the "parsonage
house, chapel with the appurtenances at their own proper costs
and charges". The others, also, seem to have been citizens of
good repute. Evidently these men felt that they were not re-
ceiving just treatment from Winter; and as freemen on American
soil, they asserted what they regarded as the right of freemen
and exchanged Richmond's Island and John Winter's hard condi-
tions for better conditions farther down the coast. Two others,
not long resident in Maine, manifested sympathy
Footnotes. 1. Trelawny Papers, 265. 2. Ib., 93, and note by the
Honorable James P. Baxter.
p.390 THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
THE FIRST WAS EDWARD TRELAWNY.
with the Puritan movement, one as it shaped itself on this side
of the sea, and the other as connected with efforts in England to
bring the despotic rule of King Charles to an end. The first was
Edward Trelawny, who soon after his arrival at Richmond's Island
in 1635, drawn thither doubtless on account of the interests of
Robert Trelawny, proceeded to Boston on a visit. While there, in
a letter written to his brother, Robert Trelawny, he indicated
such a degree of sympathy with the Massachusetts colonists as to
make it evident that he had been drawn into the Puritan movement.1
The other was Thomas Gorges, Governor of the Province of Maine.
Having in 1640-1643 faithfully served the Gorges interests here,
finding himself out of harmony with the supporters of King Charles,
as the English Civil War opened, he resigned his governorship, and
returned to England and joined the Parliamentary Party - an act
that spoke louder than words as to his attitude in that time of
stress and storm.
If there were others north of the Piscataqua who were in sym-
pathy with the Puritan movement - and doubtless, there were -
they occupied the less conspicuous places in the walks of life
and so were not heard from. The Royalists in general were in
positions of influence. Their voices were those that made most
frequent and forceful expression - and thus largely gave tone to
public sentiment as it found utterance in Maine settlements, until
their inhabitants came under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts.
But like the Royalists in England, the Maine Royalists were on
the wrong side in the great movement in which, through Puritan
warfare the battle for the sovereignty of the people was fought
AND WHO WOULD NOT BE AMONG SUCH A PEOPLE AND IN SUCH A LAND?
Footnote. 1. Trelawny Papers, 72-72; 78, 79. Referring to New
England as "blest and beloved of the Lord", Trelawny asks: "and
what is the reason of all this; surely one is, as I conceive,
that as God's people are come into a new country, where they
freely enjoy the liberty of his holy ordinance without any
trouble or molestation at all, either of bishop, archbishop or
any other inferior carping minister or gaping officer, so they
come unto the land and to the Lord with new hearts and new lives
and enter into a new covenant so to continue ever to their end.
And who would not be among such a people and in such a land?
Trelawny Papers, 74.
p.391 REVIEW OF THE PERIOD.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE.
feudal liberties of the middle ages. Never were the notions of
right more completely confounded than in the midst of the splendor
and the literature of Europe; never was there less political activity
among the people; never were the principles of true freedom less
widley circulated." This is the statement of a great French
scholar,2 who, returning from the consideration of such conditions
upon the continent, found in the Puritan movement of the 17th
century in England the "fruitful germs of free institutions" and
"the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people"
Nor was he satisfied with his investigations until he had
crossed the sea and studied here, the further development of
those principles of government for which the Puritans of England
contended in the great uprising against King Charles.
Footnotes. 1. S. R. Gardiner, The Puritan Revolution, 118.
2. Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, 24. "During
the seventeenth century a despotic scheme of society and govern-
ment was so firmly established in Europe, that but for the course
of events in England, it would have been the sole successor of
the mediaeval system...but at this moment the English, unaware of
their destiny and of their service, tenacious only of their rights,
their religion and their interests, evoked a system of govern-
ment which differed as completely from the continental model
as it did from the chartered anarchy of the middle ages."
Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, 1, 2.
p.392 THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
It is now readily admitted that those who supported the King
in that crisis in England's history, did so out of a sense of
loyalty and duty, having regard to the right as they saw the
right. In such a crisis, when good men differ and the lines are
closely drawn, it is not easy for those of either party to give
their opponents just credit for sincerity and honesty of pur-
pose. During our American Revolution, the Tories were not only
bitterly denounced, but in many cases were compelled to leave
their homes and seek refuge in the provinces, or in England.
They are no longer Tories, but Loyalists." So too, in the civil
war of 1861-1865, those who began the war and fought until they
had exhausted the means of war - were rebels. They are now con-
federates. Time is needed in order to reach just judgment. But
we do neither the Loyalists of the Revolution, nor the Confeder-
ates of the South any injustice in saying that they were on the
wrong side. Some of them have said so themselves.2
The supporters of King Charles I, were on the wrong side. It is
here, therefore, that an answer is to be found to the
Footnote. 1. "A few years ago the most intense hate was
cherished by colonists (refering to Loyalists in the British
provinces) towards the people of the United States. Their fathers
were the losers, ours were the winners in the War of the Revolu-
tion. Nor was kind feeling entertained among us. It was thought
disloyal in a colonist, adn to evince a want of patriotism in a
citizen of the Republic, to seek to promote sentiments of love
on either side, and to unite kinsmen, who, two generations ago,
were severed in the dismemberment of the British empire. But
the change is wonderful, and some persons who commend the work
of reconciliation live to witness the consummation of their
highest hopes." Lorenzo Sabine, The Loyalists of the American
Revolution, I, 137.
INSERT.
Massachusetts Loyalists in the Revolutionary War.
by Lorenzo Sabine, published at Boston, Little, Brown & Company. 1864.
(Full book, 330 kbs notepad format, transcribed by
Janice Farnsworth.)
2. "The world has not stood still in the years since we took
up arms for what we deemed our most invaluable right - that of
self-government. We now enjoy the rare privilege of seeing what
we fought for in the retrospect. It no longer seems desirable.
It would now prove only a curse. We have good cause to thank
God for our escape from it, not alone for our sake, but for
that of the whole country and even of the world." Brigadier
General E. P. Alexander, chief artillery in Longstreet's Corps.
Military Memories of a Confederate, introduction, p. viii.
General Alexander directed the Confederate artillery fire that
preceded what is called "Pickett's Charge" at the Battle of
Gettysburg, July 3, 1863. (in which my ancestor, Elon John
Farnsworth was killed). The Charge and Death of Elon John
Farnsworth.
THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
p.393 REVIEW OF THE PERIOD.
inquiry, Why, during the period under review in the preceding
chapters, did Maine settlements fail to grow and prosper as id
the settlements in other parts of New England? Plainly it was
because the men who were influential in these settlements were
largely on the wrong side. Neither they nor their promoters in
England were inspired by the high ideals with reference to free-
dom, religion and governmental interests that drew to the shores
of Massachusetts Bay the Puritans and the Pilgrims. In new re-
lations, however, Colonial Maine more and more caught the spirit
of the new democracy as the years rolled on, and in the later
unfoldings of her political history, in the struggle for nation-
al independence, in the founding and building up of new and
prosperous states in the middle west and the northest, and in
the preservation of the Federal Union - Maine, by the sturdy
character of her people and the ability of her statesmen, has
achieved an honorable and prominent position among American
Commonwealths.
END. Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth. |
