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 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 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.]