History of the United States from the Earliest Discovery of America to the Present Day Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 edition. Excerpt: ...heartily than any of the others. Hither had fled for refuge Goffe and Whalley, two of the accomplices in the death of Charles I. Congregational church polity was here established by law, to the exclusion of all others, even of episcopacy, for whose sake Charles was harrying poor Covenanters to death on every hillside in Scotland. Nor would his lawyers let the king forget Charles I.'s attack on the Massachusetts charter, begun so early as 1635, or the grounds therefor, such as the unwarranted transfer of it to Boston, or the likelihood that but for the outbreak of the Civil War it would have been annulled by the Long Parliament itself. Obviously Massachusetts could not hope to be let alone by the home government which had just come in. At first the king, graciously responding to the colony's humble petition, confirmed the charter granted by his father; but no sooner had he done so than the hot royalists about him began plotting to overthrow the same, and their purpose never slumbered till it was accomplished. Massachusetts was too prosperous and too visibly destined for great power in America to be suffered longer to go its independent way as hitherto. The province--as yet, of course, exclud-King Charles ii. ing Plymouth with its twelve towns and five thousand inhabitants--contained at this time, 1660, about twenty-five thousand souls, living in fifty-two towns. These were nearly all on the coast; Dedham, Concord, Brookfield, Lancaster, Marlbor-ough, and the Connecticut Valley hamlets of Springfield, Hadley, and Northampton being the most noteworthy exceptions. Though agriculture was the principal business, fishing was a staple industry, its product going to France, Spain, and the Straits. Pipe-staves, fir-boards, much material for ships, ...