After this, though the king in council, in July, 1637, named Gorges again as “general governor,"[28] and the Lords Commissioners for Plantations, in April, 1638, demanded the charter anew,[29] the Massachusetts general court would not recognize either order.  Gorges could not raise the necessary funds to compel obedience, and the attention of the king and his archbishop was occupied with forcing episcopacy upon Scotland.  In 1642 war began in England between Parliament and king, and Massachusetts was left free to shape her own destinies.  It was now her turn to become aggressive.  Construing her charter to mean that her territory extended to a due east line three miles north of the most northerly branch of Merrimac River, she possessed herself, in 1641, of New Hampshire, the territory of the heirs of John Mason; and in 1653-1658, of Maine, the province of Gorges.

When the Long Parliament met, in 1641, the Puritans in England found enough occupation at home, and emigration greatly diminished.  In 1643 Massachusetts became a member of the New England confederation, and her population was then about fifteen thousand; but nearly as many more had come over and were distributed among three new colonies—­Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Haven.

[Footnote 1:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 332; Winthrop, New England, I., 36.]

[Footnote 2:  Force, Tracts, II., No. iv., 15.]

[Footnote 3:  Mass.  Col.  Records, I., 75.]

[Footnote 4:  Morton, New English Canaan (Force, Tracts, II., No. v.), 109.]

[Footnote 5:  Dudley’s letter (ibid., No. iv.).]

[Footnote 6:  Mass.  Col.  Records, I., 75, 77.]

[Footnote 7:  Palfrey, New England, I., 323, 324]

[Footnote 8:  Ibid., 323.]

[Footnote 9:  Hubbard, New England (Mass.  Hist.  Soc., Collections, 2d series, V.), 138, 139; Winthrop, New England, I., 52.]

[Footnote 10:  Winthrop, New England, I., 64.]

[Footnote 11:  Mass.  Col.  Records, I., 82.]

[Footnote 12:  Ibid., 87.]

[Footnote 13:  Winthrop, New England, I., 84, 90, 152.]

[Footnote 14:  Mass.  Col.  Records, II., 58, 59; Winthrop, New England, II., 115-118, 193.]

[Footnote 15:  Cal. of State Pap., Col. 1574-1660, p. 158.]

[Footnote 16:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 356.]

[Footnote 17:  Winthrop, New England, I., 122, 123.]

[Footnote 18:  Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 174.]

[Footnote 19:  Winthrop, New England, I., 161.]

[Footnote 20:  Hazard, State Papers, I., 341.]

[Footnote 21:  Winthrop, New England, I., 161, 163, 166, 186, 188, 224.]

[Footnote 22:  Winthrop, New England, I., 163.]

[Footnote 23:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 393.]