[Boston Daily Advertiser, May 31, 1866.]
POPHAM AGAIN AND FINALLY
Our notice of Professor Patterson's Address, in the Advertiser of the 11th of April, has drawn from "Sabino" an extended reply, which appeared ten days later. As our object in noticing the Address was not controversy; and as "Sabino," skirmishing here and there, has made no effective attack on any historical position taken in the criticism, we have doubted the propriety of making a rejoinder. The world is not in haste to become Pophamized. The memories and associations of more than two centuries, grounded on historic truth, are not to be pushed aside by the most absurd and baseless theory ever addressed to the human understanding.
"Sabino" has done us the honor of acknowledging, that we have contributed to this discussion some historical facts that had not before fallen under his notice, and he thanks us for the same. The most courteous acknowledgment we can make is, confessedly, a rejoinder. We shall therefore examine somewhat minutely several of the positions taken by our Eastern friend, hoping still to deserve his kind eulogium, by contributing other facts that may not have come within his observation.
We feel especially favored in having, as a disputant in this discussion, no amateur nor journeyman Pophamite; but the master-workman, the original inventor and patentee, the Magnus Apollo of the theory; he who compiled the "Memorial Volume;" who arranges annually those agreeable junketings, in midsummer, at Sabino Head; who is perpetual manager of the controversy and overseer of the press for all Popham publications. He kindly informs us (for no one knows so well as himself) why Mr. Kidder's letter was printed, confirming the impression expressed in our notice. Every fact and inference, favoring his side of the question that "Sabino" is not master of, is not worth knowing.
It is unfortunate that one so profound in Pophamistic lore should not express his ideas in clear and idiomatic English. Some of his sentences, after careful study, we confess our inability to understand; and he often makes use of words out of their ordinary meaning. For instance, he says, "We who live in the valley of the Kennebec have always supposed, that faith is belief founded in evidence; and that all other demands on faith, if answered, are credulity." How demands on faith can in any event be credulity, is to us as obscure as the metaphysical nomenclature in vogue in the valley of the Kennebec. Faith is defined by the best lexicographer of the language as "the assent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another, resting on his authority or veracity, without other evidence." We, at the Bay, accept an older definition, running after this fashion: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen." We apprehend that if there is, in the valley of the Kennebec, any faith in the Popham theory, other than that held by our clerical friend and his copartners, it is grounded solely on the assertion of "Sabino & Co.," (the corporate style of the firm is the Maine Historical Society,) as something to be hoped for, but the evidence for which is not seen.
"Sabino," on the other hand, objects to our style, as not appropriate for a grave historical discussion. He is shocked that we should speak of his theorizing as "historical waggery, which we read, as we do other fiction, to be amused." Style, after all, is greatly a matter of taste, for which there is no accounting. We are now, however, to deal with History; and we promise our friend that our style shall be as rigid and matter-of-fact as he can desire.
"Sabino" complained that we commented on the Popham theory without "stating the theory itself." Our notice was written to be read only by those who are conversant with the historical discussions of the day, not one of whom, probably, is ignorant of what he and his Society have been doing and printing for the past four years. He supplied what he deemed an omission in our notice. We copy his carefully-prepared statement in full, and insert numerals, for convenience in its examination: —
"That in 1607 an English colony, under President George Popham, was founded (1) at the mouth of the Kennebec; – was inaugurated and continued with the sacred service of the Christian religion (2); – was in actual possession of the region afterwards known as New England (3), under a royal charter never denied nor abrogated (4); – and, though intended, as the documents show, to be perpetual, it came to an end within a year, by reason of the death of its two chief supporters (5); – and was followed by a succession of occupancies, that proved title, as against the former and never-renewed chums of France" (6).
"These facts," "Sabino" says, "we are ready to take in all their dimensions." "These facts," we, on the other hand, propose to submit to a critical examination.
1. Was an English colony founded at the mouth of the Kennebec in 1607? An attempt was made then and there to found such a colony; but the speedy result of the experiment was a disgraceful failure, and proved a warning to all future undertakers. This warning comes to us in the inimitable writings of Lord Bacon. His lordship was personally conversant with the circumstances; and to him Strachey dedicates his "Historie of Travaile," which contains the best contemporaneous account we have of the affair. We quote from the first complete edition of Lord Bacon's Essays, 1625, p. 199: —
"It is a Shamefull and Vnblessed Thing, to take the Scumme of People, and Wicked, Condemned Men, to be the People with whom you Plant: And not only so, but it spoileth the Plantation; For they will euer liue like Rogues, and not fall to worke, but be Lazie, and doe Mischief, and spend Victuals, and quickly weary, and then Certifie ouer to their Country to the Discredit of the Plantation."
"Sabino" shuns the usual expression "planted" for the more pretentious "founded," as if the affair was a reality, and had a foundation. A thing may be planted, and that be the end of it. If the seed be bad, it rots in the hill. Such was the fact, and fate of the Popham Colony.
2. The religious history of the Popham Colony is the briefest narrative of the kind on record. All that is known of it may be comprised in one sentence. A sermon was preached on two occasions; and some Indians were taken on a Sunday to the "place of public prayer," when they listened "with great reverence and silence." This conduct was highly commendable in the Indians; and, if the colonists, "the wicked, condemned men," had behaved as well, something, after all, might have come of the enterprise.
3. How much of "the region afterwards known as New England" was this Colony "in actual possession of"? A few acres of ground on the Promontory of Sabino, where they intrenched themselves, and nothing more! From this narrow foothold they were driven, on one occasion, by the Indians, who took possession of their Fort, their stock of provisions and military stores. Not understanding the nature of gunpowder, the Indians blew themselves up; and the survivors – regarding the explosion as an expression of disapproval on the part of the Great Spirit for their rudeness in driving, with arrows and clubs, forty-five Englishmen out of a Fort that was trenched, and mounted twelve pieces of ordnance – restored the premises to its gallant defenders, and proposed henceforth to live on terms of friendship. (See Williamson's History of Maine, i. p. 200.) Why does "Sabino" limit their possessions to New England? Why not give them North America, and the whole Western Continent?
4. The Popham theorists maintain, that King James's North Virginia Charter of 1606 had some special virtue as a barrier to French supremacy in New England. Both nations claimed the whole territory; – the English on the ground of Cabot's discovery, and of Gilbert's taking formal possession in 1583; and the French on the ground of prior settlement. The question of supremacy was to be determined by permanent occupancy, by enterprise, and by valor in arms; not by royal proclamations and charters. No royal charter to a trading company could strengthen the title England already possessed by right of discovery and former occupation. The Plymouth Colony landed in New England without a charter, and the event will never be the less significant on that account.
5. The Popham Colony "came to an end within a year, by reason of the death of its two chief supporters." Did it ever occur to "Sabino," that his Colony must have had a very slender foundation to have fallen in ruins at the death of two, out of a hundred and twenty, persons engaged in it? The Plymouth Colony lost by death, in four mouths after the landing, fifty-one out of one hundred and two, and still the Colony lived. We neither accept nor deny "Sabino's" statement as to the cause by which his Colony came to its end. Mourners, in doubtful cases, should be allowed to settle these questions for themselves. It was a case of complicated diseases, any one of which would have resulted in dissolution. Sworn testimony and a coroner's jury would be necessary to determine the approximate cause. The first question before such a tribunal would be whether the patient could be said to have ever lived. Waiving this point, we should, if pressed for a verdict, give – "Died by visitation of the Almighty."
Who were the two persons whose lives were so intimately entwined with that of the Colony? They were George Popham, who came over as president, and his brother, Sir John Popham, who never came over – both very aged persons. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who was "interested in all these misfortunes," and knew more of the end of the Colony than any other person whose writings have come down to us, did not regard the president's death as a matter of importance. He says, his death "was not so strange, in that he was well stricken in years before he went, and had long been an infirme man" (Briefe Narration, p. 10). Raleigh Gilbert, a younger and more energetic man, "a man," says Gorges, "worthy to be beloved of them all for his industry," was forthwith appointed president; and the change was rather a benefit, than otherwise, to the Colony, if anything could benefit what was in articulo mortis.
The death of Sir John Popham was a more serious matter. He was the head and front of the enterprise; the brother was only his agent. It was Sir John's Colony. He furnished the bulk of the capital, provided the colonists, gave his name and his own personal infamy to the undertaking. Who, then, was Sir John Popham? He was Lord Chief Justice of England, and was seventy-six years of age. In his youth he had been a highwayman, and probably a garroter. "He frequently sallied forth at night from a hostel in Southwark, with a band of desperate characters, and, planting themselves in ambush on Shooter's Hill, or taking other positions favorable for attack and escape, they stopped travelers and took from them not only their money, but any valuable commodities which they carried with them. The extraordinary and almost incredible circumstance is, that Popham is supposed to have continued in these courses after he had been called to the bar, and when, being of mature age, he was married to a respectable woman." (Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, 1849-57, i. p. 210.) Lord Campbell was not the man to speak unadvisedly of one who had occupied the highest judicial office, save one, in England. "Popham's portrait," he says, "represented him as 'a huge, heavy, ugly man,' and I am afraid he would not appear to great advantage in a sketch of his moral qualities, which, lest I should do him injustice I will not attempt." – Idem, p. 229.
With regard to his law reports, Lord Campbell says "they are wretchedly ill done, and they are not considered of authority. We should have been better pleased if he had given us an account of his exploits when he was chief of a band of freebooters." (p. 229.) "The reproach urged against him was extreme severity to prisoners. He was notorious as a 'hanging judge.' Not only was he keen to convict in cases prosecuted by the government; but in ordinary larcenies, and above all in highway robberies, there was little chance of an acquittal before him." – Idem, p. 219.
"He left behind him the greatest estate that had ever been amassed by any lawyer. Some said as much as £10,000 a year; but it is not supposed to be all honestly come by; and he is reported even to have begun to save money when 'the road did him justice.'" – Idem, p. 229.
His other biographers, Fuller, Aubrey, Lloyd, Wood and Foss, paint his character in similar colors. They allude to, and several of them state at large, the shocking details of the manner in which he came into possession of Littlecote Hall, his estate in Wiltshire, by compounding with felony. Foss, the latest biographer of the Judges of England, who is disposed to soften the hard places in Popham's record, mentions this dark story, and says, (vi. pp. 183-84,) "It is extraordinary that no refutation should have been attempted; for, if any existed, it is to be presumed that such a writer as Sir Walter Scott, while detailing the charge [in Rokeby] would have noticed the answer." The "horrible and mysterious crime" alluded to by Macaulay (Hist. of Eng., ii. p. 542) refers to this affair. Here is the man, who – the Maine Historical Society would have us believe – planted civilization on this continent. Let us see how he did it.
His position as Chief Justice gave him a controlling influence in all the jails and penitentiaries in the realm. Aubrey (Letters, iii. p. 495) says "he stockt or planted [Northern] Virginia out of all the gaoles of England." Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses (Bliss's ed. ii. p. 22) says, "he was the first person who invented the plan of sending convicts to the plantations." The statement should have been limited to Englishmen; for the French had practised this mode of colonization many years before. Cartier in 1547, La Roche in 1598, and De Montes in 1604, all used this material for colonists. The permission which the King of France gave Cartier to ransack the jails of Paris may be found in Hazard, i. p. 21. Any sort of criminals he could take, except those convicted of treason, or counterfeiting the King's currency.
Thomas Fuller (Worthies of England, ii. p. 284) says "his [Popham's] justice was exemplary on Theeves and Robbers." Wood quotes this passage, adding, "whose wayes and courses he well understood when he was a young man," and connects it with the fact of his sending convicts to the plantations. Fuller, in his essay on Plantations, in "Holy and Profane States," 1642, says: "If the planters be such as leap thither from the gallows, can any hope for cream out of scum, when men send, as I may say, Christian savages to heathen savages? It is rather bitterly than falsely spoken concerning one of our Western plantations, consisting of most dissolute people, that it was very like unto England, as being spit out of the very mouth of it." David Lloyd (State Worthies, 1760, ii. p. 46) gives a sketch of Chief Justice Popham, in which, quoting the words of Fuller, already cited, he goes on to say: "neither did he only punish malefactors, but provide for them. He first set up the discovery of New England to maintain and employ those that could not live honestly in the Old." Lloyd also, in this connection, quotes the passage we have cited from Lord Bacon (p. 23), showing that it was understood by the old English historians as applying to the Popham Colony.
The authorities seem to be conclusive as to the character of the colonists sent to Sagadahoc, the person by whom, and the manner in which, they were "prepared;" – for that is the expression Strachey uses (p. 163) with regard to these very colonists. Popham had sent out the year before (1606) a colony of one hundred persons destined to the same place. The ship was captured by the Spaniards, and the persons taken to Spain, and "made slaves in their gallions." The loss of the ship and outfit was suitably lamented; but not one word of sympathy was expressed by the old writers for the persons enslaved by the Spaniards; nor did Popham, so far as we know, make any attempt to rescue them from their hard fate; but he forthwith "prepared a greater number of planters," – that is, the one hundred and twenty persons who afterwards landed at Sabino. If it is pretended that the first company were honest, worthy men, the assumption carries with it the necessary inference that Popham was a heartless wretch; but, assuming that they also were criminals, it was natural that he should leave them to their fate.
The death of Popham, on the 10th of June, 1607, – only eleven days after the Popham colonists sailed8– was of course fatal to the original plan of the undertaking. There was no authority left to "prepare" convicts, – colonists, we mean. A criminal colony needs constant recuperation. Seventy-five of the hundred and twenty abandoned the colony before the end of four months. Why they returned to England on the first opportunity that offered, is not recorded. As they were the majority, they probably entered into a conspiracy, and deserted; or they behaved so badly, that the managers were glad to be rid of them, expecting that the Chief Justice would "prepare" others. But his Lordship was dead, though they knew it not; and with him died all hopes of continuing the enterprise. The good ship "Mary and John" returned in the spring with provisions, but with no recruits; and wound up the concern, by taking back to England the managers, and such of the wretched culprits as wished to return.
Perhaps we may as well notice here, as in another place, the only evidence "Sabino" brings forward to show that the Sagadahoc colonists were not convicted criminals, only convicted vagabonds and political offenders. It is this: "Chalmers says there was no transportation of any class of the guilty till 1619. Therefore there was none to Sagadahoc." Chalmers, we beg to submit, is not an original authority. He died only about forty years ago; and our surprise is that "Sabino" should quote him in the face of the old writers. Chalmers had no means of information which writers to-day do not possess, and it seems he did not even use what he had. He was so little acquainted with the history of the Popham Colony as not to know the name of the president who died at Sagadahoc. He gives the name of the person as Gilbert. It is but justice to the name of Chalmers to state that he made no such statement as "Sabino" attributes to him. He says simply that the policy of sending convicts to the plantations originated with King James; and, that in the year 1619, he issued an order to send one hundred dissolute persons to Virginia. There is not an intimation in Chalmers that "there was no transportation of any class of the guilty till 1619."
"Sabino" also finds much consolation "that the law has not been shown requiring transportation as a punishment for moral guilt during the time of the incipiency, continuance and end of the Popham Colony." Will "Sabino" please point out the "law" under which James sent off one hundred convicts in 1619 that did not exist in 1606? It seems never to have occurred to "Sabino," that, under the impulse of avarice, or baser motives, some things can be done without law. There was no statute of the realm requiring John Popham to commit highway robbery, yet he did waylay travelers at night, and relieve them of their purses and other valuables. But there was a law in 1606, (39 Elizabeth, ch. iv.) which, under Popham's construction, was sufficiently ample to cover his plan of colonization. But we must return to the examination of "Sabino's" theory.
6. We confess our inability to understand the concluding clause of "Sabino's" statement. The Popham Colony "was followed by a succession of occupancies that proved title, &c." What occupancies, pray? There was no later occupancy of New England till the Pilgrims arrived in 1620. No genuine Pophamite would, for an instant, admit that the Plymouth Colony had any relation to English supremacy in New England. "Regarded as a political event the Pilgrim settlement was not of the slightest consequence or importance." (Mr. John A. Poor's Vindication of Gorges, p. 72). The next event in New England history was the occupancy of Massachusetts Bay. He cannot allude to this. "Puritan" is a more distasteful word to the Maine theorists than "Pilgrim." Besides, Puritan and Pilgrim have no relation to, or connection with, Popham. We are evidently drifting away from the true interpretation, and for the present must remain in blissful ignorance of the full meaning of this Delphic utterance.
The general intent of "Sabino" is not obscure. He would have his readers understand that the Popham affair led to something that was favorable to English supremacy. This we deny, and for proof, again appeal to the record. Can "Sabino" name one of the Popham men that ever took part in, or encouraged, any subsequent settlement? Does he not know that they circulated the most unfavorable reports of the country, and prevented for many years any attempt to occupy New England? Judge Sullivan (History of District of Maine, p. 53) says, "The sufferings of this [Popham] party, and the disagreeable account which they were obliged to give to excuse their own conduct, discouraged any further attempts by the English." Brief Relation, 1622, (in Purchas, iv. p. 1826,) says, "The arrival of these [Popham] people in England was a wonderful discouragement to all the first undertakers, insomuch as there was no more speech of setting any more Plantations in those parts for a long time after." Gorges, (Briefe Narration, p. 10) speaking of the return of the Popham colonists, says, "by which means all our former hopes were frozen to death." Among his misfortunes, which he goes on to enumerate, – for he was a large holder of Popham stock, – was that the country was "wholly given over by the body of the adventurers, as also that it self was branded by the returne of the Plantation as being over cold, and in respect to that, not habitable by our Nation." This statement he must have had from the principal men of the Colony, avid shows that they were as destitute of veracity, as the main body of the colonists were wanting in the cardinal virtues enjoined in the Decalogue. Assuming Strachey's account to be correct, we know that the winter of 1607-8, on the coast of Maine, could not have been severe for that locality, whatever the season was in Europe. After the 15th of December, they finished trenching the fort, which shows that there was little or no frost in the ground. The amount of work also performed in the winter would have been absolutely impossible in a severe season. Gorges thus expressed his disbelief in the reports he received, as to the severity of the weather: "I have had too much experience in the World to be frighted with such a blast."
Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, the patentee of Nova Scotia, (Description of New England, 1630, p. 30) thus describes what the Popham Colony did for English supremacy in New England: —
"Those that went thither, being pressed to that enterprize, as endangered by the Law, or their own necessities, (no enforced thing prouing pleasant, discontented persons suffering while they act can seldom haue good successe, and neuer satisfaction) they after a Winter stay dreaming of new hopes at home returned backe with the first occasion, and to iustify the suddennesse of their returne, they did coyne many excuses, burdening the bounds where they had beene with all the aspersions that possibly they could deuise, seeking by that meanes to discourage all others."
"Our people abandoning the plantation," says "Brief Relation," (Purchas, iv. p. 1828) "in this sort as you have heard, the Frenchmen immediately took the opportunity to settle themselves within our limits." So far, then, from keeping the Frenchmen out, the Colony invited them in. In the face of such evidence "Sabino" asserts, that the Popham affair "proved title as against the former and never-renewed claims of France." Does he mean that the French claims were never renewed after 1608? Would he wipe out from history the French and Indian wars, and the bloody strife for supremacy between the French and English, that went on for a century and a half, and culminated in the overthrow of French power in 1760?