had an opportunity to work out several important experiments in government.

33. Example of Massachusetts in

government

(1) The colony was based on a written charter, which formed a constitution suited to government on the spot, and was supplemented by a little code of laws called the Body of Liberties," enacted by the General Court in 1641. (2) A popular government was built up. The governor was elected every year by the freemen of the company, and so were the assistants (originally a board of directors of the company). In 1634 the towns began to send "committees," or delegates, to the General Court (originally the stockholders' meeting) and thus established a representative government, in which the assistants remained as an upper house. In practice this was not a very democratic system, since freemen had to be church members, and hardly one adult male immigrant in eight was admitted as a freeman.

(3) Government and religion were closely united. In their political thought the colonists were much influenced by John Calvin, the great Genevan divine and statesman. The Puritans very speedily abandoned the prayer book and the episcopal authority of the Church of England, and set up independent churches which called themselves "Congregational "; and the ministers, who were supported by public taxation, had remarkable influence in public affairs. One of them said that the proper government is that "in which men of God are consulted in all hard cases and in matters of religion."

34. Winthrop and the Antinomians

Massachusetts developed statesmen of whom the best example was John Winthrop, an English country squire by birth, imbued with a strong sense of duty, living like a gentleman in a good house, with plenty of servants. Winthrop gave form to the commonwealth, regulated legislation, (1636-1637) and stood as long as he could for aristocratic government; but in the end he yielded graciously to the democracy. He was thirteen times elected governor of Massachusetts Bay.

The colony, led by men like Winthrop, sternly repressed people who differed from the established religion, or too much criticised the clergy. In 1636 Mrs. Anne Hutchinson of Boston, and others, who were called "Antinomians" (i.e. people not living by the letter of the law of God), set up the doctrine of the "covenant of

grace," or special possession of the inspiration of God; and they asserted that most of the Boston ministers were under a "covenant of works," that is, were trying to be saved by religious observances. Then Mrs. Hutchinson began to hold women's meetings to discuss and to criticise the latest perhaps the

sermon

first woman's club in America. She was tried

for heresy, dismissed

JOHN WINTHROP, ABOUT 1628.

Ascribed to Van Dyck. Dress of the
Puritan gentleman.

from the church, and ordered to leave the colony (1637). This act of religious intolerance can not be denied or defended, and is in marked contrast with the gentler spirit of the people of Plymouth.

35. Settle

Hardly had Massachusetts been settled, when a southern colony was chartered under Catholic influence. In 1632 King Charles granted to George Calvert, Lord Baltimore (soon succeeded by his son Cecil, the second Lord Baltimore), a charter for a colony called Maryland after Queen Henrietta (1632-1650) Maria. It was bounded on the north by the "40th degree," on the east by Delaware Bay and the ocean, on the south by the

ment of Maryland

Potomac, and on the west by a meridian line drawn through the source of the Potomac.

This charter was of a new type, for both the land and the powers of government were transferred to Calvert as a "pro

ity to make laws for the colony, provided the freemen of the colony assented. Although not

distinctly so stated in the charter, it was understood that Catholics would be allowed in the province; and in 1634 a body of colonists, both Catholic and Protestant, settled first at St. Marys and then elsewhere. The Baltimore family was rich and powerful, and sent out many emigrants; the soil was fertile, tobacco soon became the main industry, and slaves were introduced.

ORIGINAL EXTENT OF MARYLAND.

Dotted lines are present state boundaries.

The first excitement of early Maryland history was a controversy over Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay, with William Claybourne, who had settled it under a grant from Virginia; and a little civil war was necessary to displace him. In an early contest with the proprietor the assembly successfully asserted its right to initiate laws. The most significant statute was the Toleration Act of 1649, which distinctly declared that "no person... professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth be any waies molested, or discountenanced. . . for his religion nor in the free exercise thereof." Under this act, though Catholics could not be persecuted for their faith, it was impossible for them to keep out Protestants, who outnumbered the Catholics; and the colony speedily became distinctly Protestant in feeling.

36. Settle

ment of

and New

Haven (1623-1643)

The next impulse of colonization was on the Connecticut River, where several currents of settlement ran together. (1) The Dutch built a fort, called "Good Hope," on the Connecticut in 1623, and continued to hold it thirty years. (2) The Plymouth people established a post at Windsor Connecticut in 1633. (3) In 1631 the Council for New England granted to Lord Say and Seal and others a tract on Long Island Sound, under which a settlement was made at Saybrook in 1635. (4) The principal settlements were made by some of the people of Roxbury and Newtown, now Cambridge, Massachusetts, headed by Rev. Thomas Hooker. In 1635 and 1636 they made their way across country and founded on the Connecticut River the towns of Hartford (alongside the Dutch fort), Windsor (unceremoniously annexed from Plymouth), and Wethersfield. Soon they cut loose from Massachusetts; and in January, 1639, feeling the need of a common government, representatives of these three little towns met at Hartford and drew up the "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut," the first detailed constitution made by a self-governing American community for itself.

Meantime the colony of New Haven was forming in like manner out of separate communities: Southold and other towns on Long Island; Milford, Guilford, and Stamford; and especially the town of New Haven, founded in 1638, by Theophilus Eaton and Rev. John Davenport. In 1643 these little towns united in a common colonial assembly.

The settlement of the Connecticut valley was interrupted by an Indian war in 1637. The Pequots, a large and warlike tribe, grew threatening as they saw their hunting grounds invaded by the English. Captain John Mason, of Connecticut, with 90 armed white men and 400 Narragansetts, attacked the Pequots not far from the present Stonington, Connecticut; and stormed their fort. As the chronicler puts it, "Downe Contempofell men, women, and children, those that scaped us, fell raries, 1.444

into the hands of the Indians, that were in the reere of us . . . not above five of them escaped out of our hands." This cruel and merciless massacre terrified the remnants of the tribe, and gave peace for nearly forty years.

PEQUOT FORT, DESTROYED IN 1637.

Contemporary plan of the attack by whites and Indians.

Just outside the charter limits of Massachusetts another new colony was founded in 1636. The leading spirit was

37. Settlement of Rhode Island

Roger Williams, a graduate of Oxford, who for two years was minister at Plymouth, and then became a minister at Salem. Williams laid down what seems (1636-1650) now the obvious doctrine that the civil government has nothing to do with religious acts, and that every one should have liberty to worship God in the light of his own conscience. For his denial of the right of any government to prescribe religious beliefs for its citizens, Williams was banished from