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1643

CONSOLIDATION OF THE COLONY,

263

tenacity with which the colony held to the principle of a religious test for citizenship. The government of Milford had been less exacting, and had admitted six freemen who were not members of the church there. Were they to be accepted as citizens of Newhaven in their capacity of freemen or excluded as not being churchmembers? The matter was settled by a compromise. Their local rights were to be preserved, and they were to vote for the representatives of their town. But they were not to vote for magistrates, either themselves or by proxy, nor to be eligible for office, and henceforth none but church-members were to be admitted as freemen of the various townships. The same limitation of political power is very clearly marked in an account which we have of Guildford, based, it would seem, on the town. records. None but church-members were admitted as freemen. The magistrates of the town were chosen from among them, and they had the right of managing all business that was interesting or honourable.' This, no doubt, included the election of all state officials. It did not however include the division of the lands of the township or the passing of by-laws to regulate town matters. These were settled by the town meeting, composed not only of the freemen but of the whole body of planters-that is, of adult male inhabitants who possessed a certain qualification of property. The powers of this last body extended to the infliction of fines and corporal punishment.

The admission of these new members made it necessary to revise the constitution of the colony. The supreme legislative power was to be vested in the General Court, consisting of the Governor, the DeputyGovernor, the Magistrates, and the Deputies, of whom settled is recorded in the same place with a minuteness which shows that the admission of those who were not church-members was a matter of very grave deliberation. The record, indeed, expressly states that the matter was 'seriously considered by the whole Court.'

Necessary changes in the constitution.

each township was to return two. The Court was to sit twice a year, and unless there were some urgent reasons to the contrary, it was always to meet at Newhaven. Though, as it would seem, the Deputies and Magistrates were to sit together, yet a majority of either body might veto a measure. The Magistrates were to be elected by the whole body of freemen, voting either in person or by papers, and were to sit as the chief judicial court, and also to have local jurisdiction in the townships wherein they dwelt. This jurisdiction was to extend to civil cases of not more than twenty shillings value. They had also power to inflict a fine of twenty shillings or the penalties of whipping and the stocks in criminal cases. Though the magistrates for each township were elected by the whole body of freemen, yet it would seem that if a township was left without a resident magistrate it had power to fill the vacancy for itself.1 In the following year we find a special entry recording that the burgesses of Guildford were empowered in the absence of a resident magistrate to elect four Deputies who should act as a local court.2 Doubtless the short career of these outlying plantations as independent political bodies was not without its permanent influence. Their civic life was not lost; it reappeared in their municipal institutions.

condition of

We may from the records and from other materials extant form a fairly complete idea of the condition of General the colony. Two hundred and ten inhabitants the colony. took the oath of fidelity as freemen, a measure which may have been suggested by the troubled state of affairs in England. The test of church-membership must have excluded a considerable number, if it be true that as early as 1639 there were three hundred

1 These constitutional arrangements were set forth in the Records (vol. i. p. 112). 3 Ib. p. 137.

2 Newhaven Records, vol. i.

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1641-4

GENERAL CONDITION OF THE COLONY.

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houses at Newhaven.1 ing us the number of landholders in 1643, with the extent both of their holdings and their families.2 The whole number of householders is a hundred and thirteen, and their collective families make up four hundred and twenty. The largest estate is three thousand acres, held by Eaton. This is followed by eight others of a thousand acres each. Of the whole number forty-seven, less that is than half, fall short of a hundred acres each. The whole question of wages and prices was made the subject of legislation in 1641. Special provisions are made for the hiring of teams and boats, for the payment of such workmen as plasterers and joiners, and for substantial timber fencing. All these show that the colony had at this early date passed the stage when all its labour was needed for the necessaries of life. Indeed it is clear that the founders of Newhaven were, measured by the ordinary standard of New England, men of wealth, able to indulge, if not in luxury, at least in outward show. The Massachusetts writers who describe the colony dwell on its complete streets, its stately and costly houses, laid out in very gallant form.'4 Yet we learn from the same source that the prosperity thus indicated was not maintained. Neither was the soil immediately about the town fertile nor the harbour commodious. The distance, too, from Boston was a drawback to the trade of the settlement. An entry in the records shows us indeed that Newhaven traded with Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia."

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1 This is stated by De Vries, a leading man among the Dutch settlers in New Netherlands. He made several voyages to America, and wrote an account of them, published in 1655. A translation of this work by Mr. Henry C. Murphy was privately published at New York in 1853. The visit to Newhaven is briefly mentioned at page 125.

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But before many years some of the merchants who had begun the colony had forsaken it, others had turned farmers, and the outward aspect of the town told of its waning prosperity. The final blow seems to have come in 1644, from the loss of a ship in which, as a last speculation, the Newhaven merchants had embarked their remaining capital. She was launched in the dead of winter, was frozen up in Newhaven harbour, and only went out to perish unheard-of at sea. The vision of a ship which seemed to enter Newhaven harbour and then vanish, reflected, one may believe, by some strange atmospheric process, some three years later, was by a not unnatural superstition connected with this mishap, and the prominence which the whole matter assumed in New England tradition showed that the loss was no common calamity.2

Effect of the settlement of Newhaven.

The settlement of Newhaven is marked by more than one noteworthy feature. In the process by which the various separate townships grew into one commonwealth we see for the first time enacted on a small scale, what was afterwards done in a larger field. Political, or rather ecclesiastical, theories suggested separation, but the necessities of mutual support and defence commanded union. So it was with the New England Confederation, so it was with the American Republic. The settlement of Newhaven, too, was not merely an illustration of the necessity of union; it was itself an important element in the process by which the New England colonies were brought together. The extension of the English towards the Hudson, a process

1 Maverick, p. 23; Hubbard, p. 321.

2 Winthrop tells of the freezing up of the vessel in 1645, but not of its subsequent loss, and of the apparition of the vessel in 1648. But he does not connect the earlier incident with the later. Hubbard twice mentions the loss of the vessel, but says nothing of the apparition. Cotton Mather (Magnalia, b. i. p. 25) was apparently the first writer who connected the two events. Probably in this he only followed popular tradition.

EFFECT OF THE SETTLEMENT OF NEWHAVEN.

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to which Connecticut was also contributing, necessarily brought with it the risk of a collision with the Dutch, and increased the need for mutual defence.

The settlement of Newhaven, too, not merely made union needful, but it helped to make it possible. The great obstacle to confederation was the superior strength and the overbearing temper of Massachusetts. A federal alliance can never be satisfactory where one member towers over the rest. The weaker states must ever be in danger of sinking into a position of dependent alliance. In the case of the New England colonies that difficulty was never wholly overcome. But the settle

ment of Newhaven greatly lessened it. In all matters concerning the Dutch and the Indians, the interests of Newhaven and Connecticut were likely to be identical. Plymouth was sure to throw its lot in with them rather than with the colony which had ever shown itself a jealous and exacting, at times an unscrupulous neighbour. Massachusetts was often strong enough to override the just claims of her confederates, but she could not wholly ignore them.

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