Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/46

14 Constitution of New Plymouth. [less- land was tilled jointly; the live-stock was the property of the whole community; and the settlers worked under the control of the governor. This was so far modified in 1623 that each household was allotted a patch of corn-land. But in 1627, concurrently with the dissolution of partnership, there was a division of land and live-stock. The community thus assumed, not, we may be sure, as the result of conscious imitation but through circumstances, the form of an agricultural com- munity in the Middle Ages. Each household had its own plot of arable land ; the grass land was in two portions : one was the waste where all freeholders had equal enjoyment of the common pasturage; on the other individuals had temporary rights of occupancy. The material prosperity of the colony was well shown by the fact that, so early as 1625, they were able to produce surplus corn, which they sold to the neighbouring Indians. In a little community consisting of one town, the term "constitution*" seems almost inappropriate. Laws were passed by the whole body of freemen. They elected a governor and a committee of seven, called assistants, who transacted such judicial and executive business as there was. The first governor was William Carver, chosen on landing. He died before a year was out, and was succeeded by William Bradford, who has already been mentioned as the historian of the colony. He held office till his death in 1657, with some few intervals of a year each, all of his own seeking. Fortunate indeed it was for the colony to command the services of one so fully and so deservedly trusted and beloved. The necessity for more complete political machinery was forced upon the colony by its expansion. By 1630 two new townships had been established. A representative Assembly was then formed of delegates from the three towns. In theory both the primary Assembly of the whole body of freemen and the Court consisting of the governor and assistants still existed. In practice the functions of the Assembly were transferred to the delegates; and thus there came into existence, by a natural process of development, a bi-cameral legislature with a governor at its head. Before this time another colony had come into existence in the neighbourhood of Plymouth, far more numerous and wealthy, and more representative of the essential spirit of English Puritanism. Plymouth represented Puritanism distressed and struggling; Massachusetts repre- sented it vigorous and aggressive. The creation of Massachusetts was, more than most things of human contrivance, deliberate and preconceived. Yet even here several of the steps were fortuitous, the result of failures dexterously utilised. While Plymouth was slowly working its way to prosperity, other scattered plantations sprang up along the shore of New England, most of them under grants from the North Virginia Company. Some came