representatives of the towns, its governor
and other officials elected by the freemen, and its laws passed by the
assembly for the benefit and well-being of all. Higher still was the
loose bond of confederation that was fashioned in 1643 for the
maintenance of order, peace, and security, in the form of a league of
colonies. Highest, but weakest of all, was the bond that united them to
England, recognized in sentiment but carrying with it no reciprocal
obligations, either legal or otherwise. To the average inhabitant of New
England, the mother country was merely the land from which he had come,
the home to which he might or might not return. He had practically no
knowledge of England's plans or policy, no comprehension of her purpose
toward her colonies or the place of the colonies in her own scheme of
expansion. He was absorbed in his own affairs, not in those of England;
in the commands of God, not in those of the King; and in the dangers
which surrounded him from the foes of the frontier, not in those which
confronted England in her relations with her continental rivals. He was
dominated by his instinct for self-government and by his compelling fear
of the Stuarts and all that they represented. Even during the period of
the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, England was three thousand miles
away, appeal to her was difficult and costly, and the English brethren
were not always as sympathetic as they might have been with the aims and
methods of their co-religionists.

This very isolation from the mother country, at a time when the New
Englanders were pushing their fur-trading activities into the regions
claimed by the Dutch and the French, rendered some sort of united action
necessary and desirable. The settlers were of one stock and one purpose.
Despite bickerings and disputes, they shared a common desire to enjoy
the liberties of the Christian religion and to obtain from the new
country into which they had come both subsistence and profit. The
determination to open up trading posts on the Penobscot, the Delaware,
and the Hudson, and to utilize all waters for their fisheries brought
them into conflict with their rivals, at New Amsterdam and in Nova
Scotia, and made it imperative, should any one colony--Plymouth,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, or New Haven--attempt to pursue its plans
alone, for all to band together in its support. The troubles already
encountered with the Dutch on the Delaware and the Connecticut and with