170

DEATH OF LADY ARBELLA JOHNSON.

The colony suffered much from the severity of the climate, and other trials incident to a new settlement. Before December, two hundred of their number died, among whom was Lady Arbella Johnson, a daughter of the Earl of Lincoln, who had left the abodes of luxury and social comfort for the American wilderness, there to leave a memorial of her virtues and misfortunes. Her husband, one of the chief patrons of the colony, weighed down by sorrow and suffering, soon followed her. But these disasters in no way disheartened the colonists, who bore all with fortitude, in the hope of transmitting free institutions to their posterity.

As soon as the severity of the winter was sufficiently abated to admit of assemblies being convened, the court proceeded to enact laws for their internal regulation: and in May (1631), that body ordered that in future no persons should be admitted freemen, or entitled to a share in the government, unless members of some of the churches within the province. Many

ARRIVAL OF EMIGRANTS.

171

historians and statesmen have censured this provision, and the right of the government to make it has been much questioned. Yet it was perfectly consistent with the spirit of the age; and though it subsequently produced much dissension, it continued in force until the dissolution of the government.

In 1632 the chiefs of several Indian tribes visited Governor Winthrop, and sought his alliance. Among them were the sachems of the Mohegans, Nipmucks, Narragansetts, and Pequods. They were hospitably entertained by the governor, and entered respectively into treaties of amity with the colony. To confirm their friendly relations with the Plymouth colony, Winthrop and Wilson paid a visit to Governor Bradford, and passed a Sabbath with him; an event to which no small importance was attached at the time.

During the summer of 1633, two hundred emigrants arrived from England, among whom were some eminent puritan ministers, Elliott and Mayhew, the first Protestant missionaries to the Indians; John Cotton, "a man whose singular worth procured and long preserved to him a patriarchal repute and authority in the colony ;" and Thomas Hooker, a man little inferior to him in worth and influence. At a later period, Dr. Increase Mather arrived, whose family supplied no less than ten ministers to the colony in after times, and produced the celebrated author of the ecclesiastical history of New England.

The small-pox had prevailed in the neighbourhood of the English settlements to a considerable extent, destroying the natives and leaving their lands desolate; and as several of the vacant Indian stations were well chosen, the colonists eagerly took possession of them. This produced a greater dispersion of the population than suited the condition of an infant colony, and it led to innovation in the government, totally altering its nature and constitution. When a general court was to be held in 1634, instead of attending in person, as the charter prescribed, the freemen elected representatives in their different districts, authorizing them to appear in their name, with full power to de liberate and decide on all points

172

THE GENERAL COURT.

that fell under the cognizance of the general court. This court asserted their right to a greater share in the government than they had formerly possessed, and provided that the whole body of freemen should assemble but once a year for the election of magistrates, while the deputies from the several districts were to assemble in general court four times a year. They also provided against arbitrary taxation, by enacting that the disposing of land and raising of money should be done only by the representatives of the people. This general court is the second instance of a house of representatives in America, the first being that of Virginia, convened June 19th, 1619. The government thus established, was retained, with but slight alterations, during the continuance of the charter. We must henceforth consider the colony, not as a corporation, whose powers were defined and mode of procedure regulated by its charter, but as a society possessed of political liberty, and a constitution framed on the model of that in England.

HE founders of Massachusetts, having fled from persecution on account of their religious opinions, were chiefly anxious to secure to themselves and their descendants the unmolested enjoyment of these opinions in the country where they had taken refuge. For this purpose they deemed it important to require of all the members of their community, conformity to their religious views, to a certain extent; and this, in a small state, such as they proposed to found, they considered not only practicable but absolutely essential to the continued

174

ROGER WILLIAMS'S DOCTRINE.

existence of the colony. The puritans had not learned to separate moral and religious from political questions, nor had the governors of any other state or sovereignty in the world, at that period, learned to make this distinction. We must not be surprised therefore to find that what was considered heresy, by the rulers of Massachusetts, should be regarded as subversive of the very foundations of society, and that, in accordance with these views, it should receive from them precisely the same sort of treatment which at the same period dissent from the established religion of the state was receiving from the rulers of the most enlightened nations of Europe.

The impracticability of maintaining a uniformity of religious opinion even in a small community, most favourably situated for the purpose, soon became apparent. Among the emigrants of 1630 was Roger Williams, a puritan minister who officiated for some time as a pastor in New Plymouth; but subsequently obtained leave to resign his functions at that place, and in 1633 was appointed minister of Salem. His unflinching assertion of the rights of conscience, and the new views which he developed of the nature of religious liberty, had early attracted the attention of the leading men of the colony, and excited the hostility of a great portion of the people. Indeed there was much in his doctrine to awaken the prejudices and excite the alarm of those who had adopted the exclusive theory of Winthrop and his adherents.

"He maintained that it was not lawful for an unregenerate man to pray, nor for Christians to join in family prayer with those whom they judged unregenerate: that it was not lawful to take an oath of allegiance, which he had declined himself to take, and advised his congregation equally to reject: that King Charles had unjustly usurped the power of disposing of the territory of the Indians, and hence the colonial patent was utterly invalid: that the civil magistrate had no right to restrain or direct the consciences of men; and that anything short of unlimited toleration for all religious systems was detestable persecution."*

* Grahame.