From the very start of their existence as a ‘civil body politic’, the people we now call ‘the Pilgrims’ embraced the principle that every man was obliged to stand watch, practice the manual of arms, and defend the walls that surrounded their settlement. At the same time, whenever the colony needed to send out a patrol, conduct a raid, escort an emissary, or impress a visitor, it relied on a handful of men who found such service especially congenial.
In the two decades that followed the famous landing at Plymouth Rock, population of the colony had grown to some two thousand souls, six hundred or so of whom were men deemed able, and thus obliged, to bear arms. At the same time, the number of men served in the ‘force of readiness’ of New Plymouth – as the collection of towns had come to be called – had grown from a dozen to forty-eight.
Commanded by Miles Standish, the senior soldier of the colony, the men of this Military Company trained more often than the other men of the community. Moreover, where the occasional drills that all militiamen were obliged to attend consisted largely of practice in the handling of firearms, the more frequent training sessions of the Military Company included lessons in the art of wielding pikes.
Thanks to these exercises, Captain Standish could configure his command as either a thoroughbred body of forty-eight musketeers or a mixed force of sixteen pikes and thirty-two ‘shot’.
Establishment of a Military Company
29 August 1643
The Court hath allowed & established a military discipline to be erected and maintained by the towns of Plymouth Duxbury and Marshfield and have also heard their orders and established them
viz
Orders
1. That the exercise be always begun and ended with prayer.
2. That there be one procured to preach them a sermon once a year, viz at the election of their officers and the first to begin in September next.
3. That none shall be received into this Military Company but such as are of honest and good report and freemen, not servants, and shall be well approved by the officers and the whole company or the major part.
4. That every person after they have recorded their names in the military list shall from time to time be subject to the commands and orders of the officers of this Military Company in their places respectively.
5. That every delinquent shall be punished at the discretion of the officers and the military list or the major part thereof according to the order of military discipline and nature of the offense.
6. That all talking and not keeping silence during the time of the exercise, jeering quarreling, fighting, departing colors without license or dismission, et cetera, or any other misdemeanor (so adjudged to be by the officers and the company or the major part thereof), to be accounted misdemeanors to be punished as aforesaid.
7. That every man that shall be absent – except he be sick or some extraordinary occasion or [have the] hand of God upon him – shall pay for every such default two shillings. And if he refuse to pay it upon demand, or within one month after, then to appear before the company and be distrained for it and put out of the list.
8. That if any man shall (upon the days appointed) come without his armes or with defective armes shall forfeit for every training day as follows:
For want of a musket or a piece approved every time: six pence
For want of a sword: six pence
For want of a vest: six pence
For want of bandoleers: six pence
Six months time [is] given to provide [these items]
9. That every man that hath entered himself upon the military list and hath not sufficient arms, and doth not, or will not, procure them within six months next ensuing, his name [is] to be put out of the list.
10. That there be but sixteen pikes in the whole company (or at the most for the third part) viz – eight for Plymouth, six for Duxbury, and two for Marshfield.
11. That all that are, or shall be, elected chief officers in this Military Company shall be so titled and forever afterwards be so reputed except he obtain a higher place.
12. That every man entered into the military list shall pay six pence the quarter to the use of the company.
13. That when any of this Military Company shall die or depart this life the company upon warning shall come together with their arms and inter his corpse as a soldier and according to his place and quality.
14. That all that shall be admitted into this Military Company shall first take the oath of fidelity if they have not taken it already or els be not admitted.
15. That all postures of pike and musket, motions, ranks, and files et cetera, messengers, skirmishers, sieges, batteries, watches, sentinels et cetera be always formed according to true military discipline.
16. That all that will enter themselves upon this company shall be propounded [proposed] one day, received the next day, if they be approved.
Source
William Brigham (editor) The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1836) pages 325-327 (Hathi)
Note about Money
Twelve pence made a shilling. Thus, a fine of two shillings cost the malefactor four times as much as a fine of six pence.
Wage and price controls adopted by the General Court of New Plymouth in the late 1630s limited the wages of a laborer to twelve pence per day and the price of beer to two pence per quart.
For Further Reading
