1649

DEATH OF WINTHROP.

393

ing did his later days show any traces of failing powers. The loss of such an one in the full strength of mind would at any time have been heavy. It was doubly heavy at a crisis which so peculiarly needed conciliatory wisdom. His career has already of necessity been told in telling the political history of Massachusetts. For Winthrop has no independent or personal greatness which stands detached from the life of the community. In this he is like the great Parliamentary leaders of the seventeenth century, like the founders of the American Republic. He is, on a narrower stage, the counterpart of Pym and Hampden, the forerunner of Washington and Madison. He was not a constructive statesman of the type of Wolsey or Strafford, with a definite policy to be enforced from without, sometimes reactionary, sometimes progressive to the verge of revolution. In his writings and in those political actions which are commemorated he clearly recognizes the doctrine that the life of a free and intelligent community must shape itself, that it cannot be forced into any moulds which the wisdom of a statesman may think best.

Yet Winthrop was far more than a mere successful administrator. He was more than those whom it would be unfair to set down as merely effective administrators, those whose ideal of statesmanship is to interpret and give effect to the popular will. He is raised above such a statesman as Walpole, not more by the dignity and purity of his personal character than by the loftiness of his political views. He never scrupled to face unpopularity and to tell unpalatable truths. His fearless independence goes far to redeem the worst side of his career, his harsh treatment of heretical leaders. and unpopular beliefs. Undoubtedly he showed himself indifferent, at times unjustly and cruelly indifferent, to the rights of minorities. But we may be sure that he did so, not because he looked on the voice of the

majority as infallible, but because the minorities with whom he had to deal represented to his mind the mere temporary result of crude and unreasoning fanaticism.

We can see too that all Winthrop's personal sympathies were with order and discipline rather than individual effort and progress. In that he did but reflect a movement of which Puritanism was one phase, the reaction against the Renaissance, with its passion, its self-will, its absence of restraint. Winthrop was indeed Wootton's perfect man, whose passions not his masters are.' Nor can we doubt that he judged the peculiar needs of New England rightly, though he may have been willing to satisfy them at too great a cost. Those tendencies to disruption inherent in the life of a young community can only be kept in check by the rigid pressure of a uniform system. With Winthrop indeed, as with those by whom he was surrounded, the craving for uniformity led to measures by which individual opinion was stifled, and the mental growth of the community checked and stunted. But, over and above the peculiar necessities of New England life, two pleas may be fairly urged in extenuation of Winthrop's intolerance. It can scarcely be said too often that in this matter the men of the seventeenth century must not be judged by the standard of the nineteenth. Even in the present day it may well be questioned how far toleration, apart from indifference, has taken any deep root. 'Suffer the tares to grow,' is a doctrine more often preached than loyally accepted and carried out.

Moreover, while Winthrop appears to us stained with the guilt of persecution, in all likelihood his contemporaries regarded him as stained with the guilt of undue lenity. Tradition tells us that one of his last public acts was to refuse Dudley's request that he would sign an order for the banishment of a heretic, saying

1649

CHARACTER OF WINTHROP.

395

that he had done too much of that work already.1 Whether that story rests on any basis of fact or not, it is certainly significant that the worst outburst of religious fury in New England, the cruel persecution of the Quakers, did not come about till the sobering and restraining influence of Winthrop had passed away, and the colony had come under the control of that cruel and narrow-minded man, John Endicott.

We may well believe too that the influence of Winthrop would have been of peculiar value in the coming struggle between Massachusetts and the other colonies. Not merely his upright temper and statesmanlike mind, but his personal interest in Connecticut, in which his son was now one of the chief citizens, would have led him to look with sympathy on the claims of the weaker colonies. His whole temper and attitude of mind fitted him to play the part of an arbitrator and a peacemaker. The confederates would have felt confidence in his fairness; Massachusetts would have felt confidence in his patriotism.

If New England had reason to mourn for the statesman, assuredly the student of New England history has Value of scarcely less ground for regretting the writer. his history. The value of Winthrop's work is not fully felt till we endeavour to thread our way through the later annals of his country without its help. It would be difficult to name any work of which the substantial merit was so little indicated by the outer form. Not indeed that the book is cumbrous or obscure or unskilfully written. But it is professedly a diary or chronicle, composed without any appearance of literary arrangement or grace. Yet one lays it down with the feeling that the whole internal life of Massachusetts has

1 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 151. The tradition is so unlike what a New Englander would have invented for the glorification of his countryman that I am inclined to believe it.

been disclosed. Nor, when the subject demands it, is there any lack of that weight and dignity of speech which comes from clearness and simplicity of mind. And in the whole field of history it would be hard to name any work, written by one who had taken a leading part in the events recorded, so free alike from egotism and from the conscious and ostentatious avoidance of egotism.

Atherton's

against the

In the year following Winthrop's death the Commissioners took further measures to enforce fulfilment of the terms to which Ninigret and Pessacus expedition had assented. Atherton, a Massachusetts soldier, Indians. was sent with twenty men to exact tribute from Pessacus, and to warn Ninigret that his intrigues were known. Tradition tells how Atherton with his troop marched into the village where Pessacus dwelt, how he posted his men round the wigwam of the chief, and, boldly marching in, haled him out by his scalp-lock, and how the terrified chief at once paid up the arrears of tribute. Of Atherton's dealings with Ninigret we know nothing beyond the fact that he carried out the instructions of the Commissioners.2

tions with

at Hart

ford.

Meanwhile Stuyvesant had shown his anxiety for peace by making a journey from New Netherlands to Negotia- Hartford to meet the Federal Commissioners. the Dutch Though he had come in person, he wisely proposed that the preliminary negotiations at least should be carried on in writing. The proceedings began with a statement of grievances on the Dutch side. The chief of these were that the English had encroached on Dutch territory, that they had detained fugitives, interfered with the trade of Dutch vessels, and spoilt the

1 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 142 n.

2 The instructions are given in the Acts of Commissioners (vol. i. pp. 168, 169). Atherton's name does not appear, but a blank is left for the commander.

1650

DISPUTES WITH STUYVESANT.

397

Indian fur market by paying extravagant prices. Stuyvesant furthermore complained that Staunton, who acted as interpreter for the English among the Indians, had slandered him. The complaint does not specify the calumny, but the answer made by the English representatives shows that it consisted in repeating what the Indians had said concerning Stuyvesant's encouragement of them against the English. Finally, he complained of injustice inflicted on one Lokman, who had been punished by the English for selling ammunition to the savages.1 This letter was dated from New Netherlands. As it was written from Hartford, this was understood to be meant as a territorial claim. The Commissioners refused to treat till this was altered, and Stuyvesant gave way. The English representatives then made a detailed answer to Stuyvesant's charges. On the territorial question they contented themselves by reaffirming their claim to the Connecticut river. They disclaimed any wish to hinder the Dutch trade, except so far as any dealings with the Indians might be dangerous. Their answer on the third head is noteworthy, and shows how self-interest may quicken men's perceptions of economic truth. Stuyvesant's complaint that the English merchants undersold the Dutch implied the propriety of some agreement for regulating trade, and reducing it to a monopoly. The Commissioners decline to inquire by what rules the traders, whether at Aurania Fort or Springfield, walk.' 'Trade is free, and merchants attend their own convenience, and will hardly continue a trade driven to lose; but laws to limit, if not well considered, will be soon repealed.' To the charge brought against Staunton, the English answered that he simply reported what he had heard; but they make the admission, important in reference to later events, that the Indians are subtle, and may have their

6

1 For Lokman's offence see Connecticut Records (vol. i. p. 198).