north latitude, which of course included the Plymouth colony. In addition
to all other possible rights and privileges, it had the monopoly of the
fisheries of the coast, and it was from this that revenue was most
certainly expected, since it was proposed to lay a tax on all tonnage
engaged in it. All the new company had to do was to grant charters to all
who might apply, and reap the profits. But the scheme was fated to
miscarry, because the pretense of colonization behind it was impotent, and
the true object in view was the old one of getting everything that could
be secured out of the country, and putting nothing into it. The fisheries
monopoly was powerfully opposed in Parliament and finally defeated; small
sporadic settlements, with no sound principle or purpose within them,
appeared and disappeared along the coast from Massachusetts to the
northern borders of Maine. One grant conflicted with another, titles were
in dispute, and lawsuits were rife. The king sanctioned whatever injustice
or restriction his company proposed, but his decrees, many of them
illegal, were ineffective, and produced only confusion. Agriculture was
hardly attempted in any of the little settlements authorized by the
company, and the only trade pursued was in furs and fishes. The rights of
the Indians were wholly disregarded, and the domain of the French at the
north was infringed upon. All this while the Pilgrims continued their
industries and maintained their democracy, undisturbed by the feeble
machinations of the king; and in 1625 the death of the latter temporarily
cleared the air. Charles affixed his seal to the famous Massachusetts
Charter four years later; and though Gorges and some others continued to
harass New England for some time longer, the plan of colonizing by
fisheries was hopelessly discredited, and the development of civil and
religious liberties among the serious colonists was assured.

The experiments thus far made in dealing with the new country had had a
significant result. The Plymouth colony, going out with neither charter