110

1676.

THE INDIAN WAR IN MAINE.

CHAP. signal for the commencement of devastations; and, XII. within a few weeks, the war extended over a space of nearly three hundred miles. But in Maine it was a border warfare, growing out of a consciousness of wrongs, and a thirst for revenge. Sailors had committed outrages, and the Indians avenged the crimes of a corrupt ship's crew on the villages. There was no general rising of the Abenakis, or Eastern tribes, no gatherings of large bodies of men. Of the English settlements nearly one half were destroyed in detail; the inhabitants were either driven away, killed, or carried into captivity; for covetousness sometimes provoked to mercy, by exciting the hope of a ransom.

Aug.

11.

The escape of ANNE BRACKETT, grand-daughter of George Cleeves, the first settler of Portland, was the marvel of that day. Her family had been taken captives at the sack of Falmouth. When her captors hastened forward to further ravages on the Kennebeck, she was able to loiter behind; the eye of the mother discerned the wreck of a birchen bark, which, with needle and thread from a deserted house, she patched and repaired; then, with her husband, a negro servant, and her infant child, she trusted herself to the sea in the tattered canoe, which had neither sail nor mast, and was like a feather on the waves. She crossed Casco Bay, and, arriving at Black Point, where she feared to find Indians, and at best could only have hoped to find a solitude, how great was her joy, as she discovered a vessel from Piscataqua, that had just sought an anchoring-place in the harbor! 1

The surrender of Acadia to the French had made the struggle more arduous; for the Eastern Indians

1 Hubbard's Indian Wars, 234. Willis's Portland, i. 143, 147, 155.

Compare Church, 166. MS. Letters from Willis and Farmer.

XII.

12.

obtained supplies of arms from the French on the CHAP. Penobscot. To defeat the savage enemy effectually, the Mohawks were invited to engage in the war; a few 1677. of them took up the hatchet: but distance rendered coöperation impossible. After several fruitless attempts 1678. at treaties, peace was finally established by Andros as April governor of Pemaquid, but on terms which acknowledged the superiority of the Indians. On their part, the restoration of prisoners and the security of English towns were stipulated; in return, the English were to pay annually, as a quit-rent, a peck of corn for every English family.'

The defence of New England had been made by 1676 its own resources. Jealous of independence, it never applied to the parent country for assistance; and the earl of Anglesey reproached the people with their public spirit. "You are poor," said he, "and yet proud." The English ministry, contributing nothing to repair colonial losses, made no secret of its intention to "reassume the government of Massachusetts into its own hands;" and, before a single season had effaced the traces of the blood of her sons, while the ground was still wet, with the blood of her yeomanry, the wrecks of her villages were still smoking, and the Indian war-cry was yet ringing in the forests of Maine, Edward Randolph, the English emissary, arrived in June New England.

The messenger and message were received with coldness. The governor avowed ignorance of the officer whose signature was affixed to the letter from the king, and denied the right of the king, or of parliament, to bind the colony by laws adverse to its

1 Williamson, i. 553. Neal's N. E. &c. &c.

2 Burk's Virginia, ii. Appendix, xxxvii.

10.

112

THE CONTROVERSY WITH CHARLES II. RENEWED.

CHAP. interests.

XII.

66

"The king," said the honest Leverett, can in reason do no less than let us enjoy our liberties 1676 and trade, for we have made this large plantation in the wilderness at our own charge, without any contribution from the crown."

1677.

Randolph, at once the agent for Mason, and the messenger from the privy council, belonged to that class of hungry adventurers with whom America ultimately became so familiar. His zeal led him, in the course of nine years, to make eight voyages to America; and now, on his return to England, after a residence of but six weeks in the New World, that he might excite the office-seekers in the court of Charles II., he exaggerated the population of the country fourfold, and its wealth in a still greater proportion. His statements deserve little confidence; yet they made the English ministry more eager to narrow the territory, cripple the trade, and recall the charter of Massachusetts.

The colony, reluctantly yielding to the direct commands of Charles II., resolved to send William Stoughton and Peter Bulkley as envoys to England; but, agreeably to the advice of the elders, their powers were circumscribed "with the utmost care and caution."

In their memorial respecting the extent of their territory, the court represented their peculiar unhappiness, to be required, at one and the same time, to maintain before courts of law a title to the provinces, and to dispute with a savage foe the possession of dismal deserts.

Remonstrance was of no avail. A committee of the privy council, which examined all the charters, refused

1 Hutch. Coll. 503, &c. &c. Hutch. Hist. i. 280, &c.

XII.

to decide on the claims of the resident settlers to the CHAP. land which they occupied, but denied to Massachusetts the right of jurisdiction over Maine and New Hamp- 1677. shire. The decision was so manifestly in conformity with English law, that the colonial agents attempted no serious defence.

The provinces being thus severed from the government of Massachusetts, King Charles was willing to secure them as an appanage for his reputed son, the kind-hearted, but worthless duke of Monmouth, the Absalom of that day, whose weakness was involved in a dishonest opposition to his father, and whom frivolous ambition at last conducted to the scaffold. It was thought that the united provinces would furnish a noble principality with an immediate and increasing revenue. But before the monarch, whom extravagance had impoverished, could resolve on a negotiation, Massachusetts, through the agency of a Boston merchant, obtained possession of the claims of Gorges, by a purchase and regular assignment. The price paid was May £1250-about six thousand dollars.

It was never doubted that a proprietary could alienate the soil; it was subsequently questioned whether the rights of government could be made a subject of traffic.

This assignment was the cause of a series of relations, which, in part, continue to the present day. In a pecuniary point of view, no transaction could have been for Massachusetts more injurious; for it made her a frontier state, and gave her the most extensive and most dangerous frontier to defend.

But Massachusetts did not, at this time, come into possession of the whole territory which now constitutes the state of Maine. France, under the treaty

6.

114

XII.

ORGANIZATION OF A GOVERNMENT IN MAINE.

CHAP of Breda, claimed and occupied the district from St Croix to the Penobscot; the duke of York held the tract between the Penobscot and the Kennebeck, claiming, indeed, to own the whole tract between the Kennebeck and the St. Croix; while Massachusetts was proprietary only of the district between the Kennebeck and the Piscataqua.

A novel form of political institution ensued. Massachusetts, in her corporate capacity, was become the lord proprietary of Maine; the little republic on the banks of the Charles was the feudal sovereign of this eastern lordship. Maine had thus far been represented in the Massachusetts house of representatives; henceforward she was to be governed as a province, according to the charter to Gorges. In obedience to an ordinance of the general court, the governor and 1680 assistants of Massachusetts proceeded to organize the government of Maine. The president and council were appointed by the magistrates of Massachusetts; at the same time, a popular legislative branch was established, composed of deputies from the several towns in the district. Danforth, the president, was a man of worth and republican principles; yet the pride of the province was offended by its subordination; the old religious differences had not lost their influence; and royalists and churchmen prayed for the interposition of the king.1 Massachusetts was compelled to employ force to assert its sovereignty, which, nevertheless, was exercised with moderation and justice.?

1 Sullivan's Maine, 384. Williamson, i. 557, &c. Hutch. Coll. Mass. Records, iv.

2 Chalmers, 488: "No assembly, of which the representatives of the people composed a constituent part, was allowed, because none had

been mentioned in the original grant." An assembly was regularly held. Williamson's Maine, i. 566, &c. The reason assigned is as unfounded as the statement in Chalmers. In the grant of 1639, the assent of the majority of the fiee