507 joint stock. They were to assume both the assets and liabilities of the company, and were guaranteed five per cent net profit on the business done. They were to receive half the profits of the fur trade with the colony; and were assured a monopoly of salt-making, of the transportation of passengers and goods to and from the colony and of furnishing the colonial magazine at fixed rates. They were also to receive subscriptions to the common stock from such as might choose to invest, and on such terms as they, as managers, might determine. A treasurer was chosen to receive, care for and disburse all funds; and Governor Winthrop was made the head of the board. The undertakers provided vessels for the transportation of those who went with Winthrop, and possibly for a time thereafter; but to their subsequent activity, along this or any other line mentioned in the contract, we find almost no reference in the printed authorities. The settlement of the Dutch on the Con- . necticut and the Hudson, the preoccupation of the Kennebec by New Plymouth and of the Piscataqua by John Mason and his associates, prevented Massachusetts from absorbing a large part of the fur trade of New England. Such as there was appears to have been carried on by individuals or associations under conditions prescribed by the general court; but of connection of the undertakers with it no evidence has been found. The meagre references in the Records and other contemporary authorities to the salt industry show that it was not of sufficient importance to demand much regulation,3 and not the slightest

1 Mass. Col. Recs., I, 62 et seq.

2 Ibid., I, 88, 93, 96, 179, 208, 322; II, 44, 83, 86, 110, 138; III, 53. In the Body of Liberties of 1641 there was no provision concerning Indian trade; but in the Laws and Liberties of 1649, as issued in 1660, appear acts for its regulation. One of these declares that "the trade of furrs with the Indians in this Jurisdiction doth properly belong to this Common-wealth, and not unto particular persons." See Whitmore's edition of the Colonial Laws of Massachusetts (1889), pp. 161, 242. The votes of the general court concerning this trade and the licenses it granted for its prosecution show how this principle was applied in practice.

8 Ibid., I, 331; II, 229. These references show that, while permission to experiment with new processes of manufacture was obtained from the general court, freedom to produce this commodity was enjoyed by all the inhabitants of the colony.

trace of its being carried on by the undertakers appears. The part played by the magazine in the trade system of Massachusetts must also have been slight, for neither in the Colonial Records nor in the writings of Winthrop have we any account of its existence in the colony subsequent to 1630.1 In fact, immediately after Winthrop's arrival in Massachusetts he was forced to send back to Bristol by John Pierce and Isaac Allerton of New Plymouth for a supply of provisions.2 Early the following summer Allerton arrived in the White Angel with live stock and provisions for both Massachusetts and New Plymouth. Private trading appears soon to have become the rule in the Bay colony. Of the undertakers who were expected to take up their residence in New England Isaac Johnson soon died, John Revell returned to England and Sir Richard Saltonstall returned temporarily to England, but afterward came back and settled in a remote part of the colony. This left Winthrop and Dudley in Massachusetts as the only survivors of the board from whom active participation in its work might be expected. But in Winthrop's correspondence, as preserved, the only references to business transactions with the undertakers in England concern payment for the ships which brought over the emigrants of 1630.5 With Samuel Aldersey, who, as treasurer of the company when Winthrop left England, was to care for the moneys of the "joint stock "6 and pay them out upon warrants under the bonds of the undertakers, or any three of them, he apparently did not correspond at all. In his Letter to the Countess of Lincoln Thomas Dudley said that the loss of the live stock which had died on the outward voyage, the failure to send a supply of the same from Ireland and the delay in build

1 Of the existence of a magazine there previous to that time there is abundant evidence. Recs., I, 393, etc.

Winthrop, History of New England (Savage's edition), I, 448.

3 Ibid., I, 69.

4 Young, Chronicles of Massachusetts, pp. 315, 317, 336; Winthrop, I, 451.

5 Winthrop, I, 448 et seq.

6 Recs., I, 65.

7 During the first year of Winthrop's residence in Massachusetts his son John was his business correspondent.

8 Young, Chronicles, p. 321.

ing "weakened our estates, especially the estates of the undertakers, who were three or four thousand pounds engaged in the joint stock, which was now not above so many hundreds."1 Still in 1634 a committee, most, if not all, of whom were patentees resident in England, was appointed to choose from among themselves one to be treasurer for a year "for this plantation," and to grant a full discharge to the existing treasurer; and in 1638 Mr. George Harwood, the treasurer, was requested to present his account.2 These entries indicate that commercial relations of some sort were for a number of years kept up with adventurers resident in England, but not with the undertakers as such. The hints which have been preserved concerning such relations do not seriously modify the conclusion that by the close of 1630 the joint-stock or purely commercial element in the Massachusetts enterprise had practically disappeared. It was decided that henceforth that Company should not directly engage in trade, but should confine itself to regulating it. With its removal into the colony it began to devote itself to the work of settlement and government. Trade continued and expanded, but in private hands, subject to the legis lative and administrative control of the colonial government.

An analogous change was wrought in the land system of the colony at the time of the transfer of the government to Massachusetts. As will appear later, the corporations which were resident in England made their colonial domains to some extent sources of profit. They granted them to adventurers or settlers as rewards for sharing in the enterprises; they settled tenants and servants upon them; they might even collect quit rents. In May, 1629, while the Massachusetts Company was still located in England, a plan of this nature was adopted for the division of lands among the settlers at Salem. Adventurers were to receive 200 acres for each sum of £50 invested, and to share proportionally for each multiple or fraction of that sum put into the enterprise. Adventurers who became set

1 From accounts growing out of transactions when the company was resident in England.

2 Recs., I, 128, 238. S. F. Haven in Archaeologia Americana, III, 123. 3 Mass. Col. Recs., I, 43.

tlers, or who sent over others at their own charge, were to receive fifty acres for each person transported. Persons other than adventurers, who brought families at their own expense into the colony, were to receive fifty acres for the master of the family, and such amount in addition as, "according to their charge and quality," the governor and council in New England might think necessary. Provision was also made in the plan for a town in which adventurers should build their houses. A part of the domain was reserved by the company, and servants had already been sent over to cultivate it. A few large private grants had also been made to prominent adventurers. Though quit rents had not appeared, yet, under these instructions, a land system was in process of development in and about Salem which was similar to that established by the London Company in Virginia. It was a system in which the company acted as proprietor and so managed its estate as to secure a profit therefrom.

After Winthrop's arrival in Massachusetts, the corporation acted no longer in the capacity of a land company: it no longer sought in any way to obtain a profit from its domain. It is true that subsequent to that time, and in recognition of public services, it made some grants to individuals, but these were never large,1 and after the first decade but few of them were issued. Instead, the township system developed, as it was doing under similar conditions in New Plymouth. This means that, owing to the circumstances attending the migration and settlement, the colonists established themselves in detached groups about Massachusetts Bay. We know that in New Plymouth this process of dispersion went on in spite of the prolonged opposition of the colonial authorities. There is also evidence that it was inconsistent with the original plan

1 Egleston, Land System of New England, p. 24, in Johns Hopkins University Studies, vol. iv.

2 The sickness which prevailed at Salem in the winter of 1629-30 and at Charlestown during the following summer and fall had much to do with this. It broke up completely the system of cultivating the company's land by means of indented servants. Young, Chronicles, p. 312.

8 Bradford, History of New Plymouth, pp. 303 et seq.

of Winthrop and his associates, but they yielded at once to the natural course of events.1 The removal of the seat of the colonial government from Salem to Charlestown caused the former to appear distinctly as a town. Charlestown had enjoyed a separate existence for a brief time before it became the temporary residence of the governor and other magistrates. As the result of a second removal, Boston became both a town and the permanent place of residence of the colonial authorities. These and the other early settlements were established without express authorization from the general court, but soon the court began to name 2 them and to provide for fixing their boundaries. Constables were also appointed,3 and other provision was made for the exercise within them of local powers subject to control by the colonial government.4 For our purpose the important point is that the towns as communities become the chief grantees of the company's land. After the town had been established and its limits fixed, those of its inhabitants who were the direct objects of the grant became the proprietors of the land within its bounds, and either held and managed it as common or disposed of it to individuals. The colony as such made no effort to secure a territorial revenue: it did not establish a land office or a system of quit rents. Thus one of the most characteristic features of the provincial system was lacking. Only by the towns and their boards of proprietors was a work done which was analogous to that performed in the provinces by the governor and the officials of the land office. But even in the towns, whether when the commons were divided or when grants were occasionally made to individuals, the land was not often sold or leased.5 Rent only occasionally appeared

1 Dudley's Letter to the Countess of Lincoln, Young, Chronicles of Massachusetts, p. 313.

2 Recs., I, 75, 94, 127.

8 Ibid., I, 76, 79.

4 Ibid., I, 167, 172.

5 Boston Records, Book of Possessions, printed in Second Report of the Boston Record Commission, 1881. Charlestown Land Records, in Report of

Boston Rec. Comm. for 1883. Roxbury Land Records, in Report of Boston Rec. Comm. for 1884. See also the able papers on the Genesis of the Massachusetts Town in Proc. of Mass. Hist. Soc., Second Series, vols. v and vii