United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
Unfriendliness characterized, from the first, the relations with the
French. They claimed that Acadia extended as far south as Pemaquid,
and one day in 1631, when the manager of the Penobscot factory was
away, a French privateer appeared in port and landed its crew. In the
story, as told by Bradford, the levity of the French and the solemn
seriousness of the Puritans afford a delightful contrast. The
Frenchmen were profuse in "compliments" and "congees," but taking the
English at a disadvantage forced them to an unconditional surrender.
They stripped the factory of its goods, and as they sailed away bade
their victims tell the manager when he came back "that the Isle of Rhe
gentlemen had been there."[20] In 1633, after Razilly's appointment as
governor-general, De la Tour, one of his lieutenants, attacked and
drove away the Plymouth men at Machias Bay,[21] and in 1635 D'Aulnay,
another lieutenant, dispossessed the English at Penobscot.
The Plymouth people, greatly incensed, sent two armed ships to punish
the French, but the expedition proved a failure. Then they appealed to
Massachusetts for help, but the great men of that colony, hoping, as
Bradford intimates, to arrange a trade with the French on their own
account, declined to be at any expense in the matter,[22] and so the
Penobscot remained in unfriendly hands for many years.
This appeal to Massachusetts showed that another power had stepped to
the front in New England. After John Winthrop set up his government in
1630 on Massachusetts Bay the history of the Plymouth colony ceased to
be of first importance, and therefore the remaining events in her
annals need not take much space. In 1633 the people of Plymouth
established a fort on Connecticut River above the Dutch post, so as to
intercept the Indian trade, and in 1639 they renewed the ancient
league with Massasoit.[23] In 1640 they had a dispute with
Massachusetts over the boundary-line, which was arranged by a
compromise, and in 1641 William Bradford deeded to the freemen of the
corporation of New Plymouth the patent of 1630, granted by the Council
for New England to him as trustee for the colony.[24] Finally, in
1643, Plymouth became a member of the New England confederation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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