378

CHAPTER XIII

THE DOMINION OF NEW ENGLAND

In the revocation of the Massachusetts charter and the events which led up to it the forces which determined the course of American colonial history appear in unusually clear relief. On the one side we have a community of religious nonconformists whose natural trend was toward the largest degree of self government which was consistent with any recognition whatever of the supremacy of the mother state. This characteristic was reflected in all their institutions and in almost every phase of their history. On the other side appears an assertion of imperial authority and restraint over the colonies which, though seemingly moderate when first announced in the letters of Charles II, became, under his successor and in a later period of the Restoration, almost unlimited in scope.

This policy, like so much in the ideals of the Stuarts, was as close an imitation of French models as the character of the English permitted; and there were those even among the colonists at the time who recognized it as such. Had these ideals prevailed, the powers of government in the colonies would have been concentrated in their executives acting under strict instructions from England: the boundaries of the colonies, as specified in their charters, would have been disregarded and for governmental purposes they would have been combined into larger and larger unions; the affairs of the frontier, including relations with the Indians and everything which pertained to defence, would have been subjected to regulation, as far as possible from a single centre; everywhere the interests of the state religion would have received the favor of government, though not necessarily to the exclusion of dissent; in commercial and industrial affairs the interests of the empire as a whole and as interpreted from the standpoint of England, would have been the cherished

379

object of attention; the sphere and activities of local government within the colonies would have been narrowed; and while the principles of English law which guarantied private rights would have been retained, that law would have been administered uniformly, from above and from relatively a few centres, and those varieties in detail which came from local and individual initiative would have been minimized or would gradually have disappeared. It is not probable that the amount and scope of parliamentary legislation affecting the colonies would have increased, but it would soon have become evident that administratively the colonies were simply an extension of the realm. This was the type of policy whose claims were now asserted as a counterpart to the particularism of New England and of the chartered colonies generally.

But the revocation of the Massachusetts charter was only the first step in the long process by which it was hoped that the established tendencies of frontier life in the colonies, especially those of New England, might be overcome. It was also the least difficult part of the task, for it had been possible to consummate this act in England. It must be followed by the like treatment of many other colonies, by their union, and then by the slow development of royal government within the united whole. For such a task statesmanship of a high order was required. Not simply power, but knowledge, sympathy, and skill must be brought into requisition. The object must be pursued with persistence and with large intelligence. If it were to succeed, the colonists must in some way be brought to believe that their interests were conserved by it and that it was not something merely imposed from without.

In the failure of the Stuart government to command the ability and the patience which were required for the task of autocratic government lay one of the chief elements of strength in the principle for which the colonists were contending. Their methods of government at home, as well as the officials whom they employed, were ill adapted to the spirit and the needs of the English nation. There was much less likelihood that they would attempt to order their

380

colonial policy and their appointments in the colonial service with a clear appreciation of the difficulty of the task they were undertaking. Thus far Edward Randolph had been the agent upon whom English officials had chiefly relied for information and whose advice they had followed in action. But Randolph’s personal qualities and his career thus far in New England unfitted him for valuable constructive work. He was a partisan of the narrowest mould, a fitting counterpart of such men as Endicott and Danforth among the colonists. He was an impecunious man, dependent for support on the pickings of office. He therefore formed one among the herd of office seekers who were ever looking for employment. By his zeal in office and his activity as a correspondent he sought to entitle himself to promotion. Besides his personal advancement, his one idea was to promote the interests and claims of the crown, almost irrespective of the effect which they might have on the well-being of the colonists or the relation in which it might stand to their predispositions. All his utterances were affected by this bias. His knowledge of law and business was utilized wholly for these ends. Of sympathy with the body of the colonists and their interests scarcely a sign appears in his voluminous correspondence. Randolph’s career somewhat deeply influenced American affairs, but it was in an arbitrary and sinister fashion which tended more toward strife than to peaceful and harmonious development.

The danger was that Randolph’s spirit and conduct might prove typical in too high a degree of colonial officials as a class. In some of the proprietary provinces such a spirit had at times appeared. Owing to the remoteness of the colonies, to the comparative disregard in which, because of their dependence and weakness, they were held; because also of the autocratic ideas which prevailed in the Stuart court and of the spirit of favoritism and privilege which then controlled appointments to office,—there was great danger lest the colonial officials who received their places directly from the king should be defective in character, inferior in ability, and indifferent to the needs and desires of those whose affairs they were sent to administer. If that

381

should prove to be the case, the substitution of royal provinces for chartered colonies would not materially strengthen the bond of union between the colonies and the mother country.

More than a year and a half elapsed—September, 1684, to May, 1686—between the arrival of intelligence in Massachusetts that the decree against the charter had been issued and the establishment of government directly under the crown. So great had been the change since 1635, both in the spirit of Massachusetts and in that of the English Puritans, that now there was no thought of resistance. During the interval two elections were held and the general court met for several short sessions. Bradstreet was continued in the governorship, and the only change of significance in the board of assistants was the dropping of Dudley from the list of assistants in 1686. Shrimpton, who had been a friend of Randolph, was summoned before the assistants in March, 1686, for declaring in the county court at Boston that there was no governor and company.¹ Much fruitless and irritating discussion followed, which was occasioned by this affair, but it was brought to an end by the establishment of a new government.

In England, among the questions which first arose was that of the extent of the province which should now be organized in New England.² Plymouth had no royal charter and it was immediately resolved that that colony should be annexed to Massachusetts. Since Cranfield’s commission had been revoked, the same resolution was reached concerning New Hampshire. King’s Province would necessarily be included. The attorney general also reported that the Province of Maine, with the proprietorship of all the ungranted land there, devolved on the crown as soon as the corporation of Massachusetts was dissolved. This cleared the way for the continued union of that province with Massachusetts. The lords of trade and plantations also took notice that Rhode Island and Connecticut “are governed at present by Charters granted

382

by His Majesty . . . which are not yet vacated by any Proceedings at Law.” Proceedings, as will appear, were duly instituted, and thus by rapid strides the process advanced by which the dream of Sir Ferdinando Gorges was for a brief time to be realized.

The government of Charles II at first determined to appoint Colonel Percy Kirke to the office of governor and at once to complete the organization of Massachusetts as a royal province. Kirke had served in Tangier, and as his conduct a year later in the suppression of Monmouth’s rebellion proved, was an officer of the most brutal character. In discussing the commission of Kirke, which it was thought should be modelled after that of Lord Howard, governor of Virginia, the committee of trade decided that judicial proceedings before the Massachusetts courts and marriages which had been celebrated according to the forms observed there, should be treated as valid. Land which should be at the king’s disposal and granted out should be subject to a quit rent. The commissioners of customs should prepare special instructions respecting the enforcement of the laws of trade. The governor should select one of the churches of Boston to be used for religious service according to the rites of the Church of England. It was also finally resolved that no reference be made to an assembly, either in the commission or the instructions.

But it is needless to specify further the provisions which the committee of trade planned to introduce into the commission and instructions of Colonel Kirke,¹ for he was not sent to New England. The change of plan was due to the delay consequent on the death of Charles II, to the outbreak of Monmouth’s rebellion, and to the influence which in the interval Randolph was able to exert. He had watched with dissatisfaction the bold proceedings of Cranfield in New Hampshire and saw that he was bringing the king’s government into contempt.² He also saw that, if a governor

383

were sent to the new province who should tread in Cranfield’s steps or do worse things, existing prejudice toward England would be increased. When the “Bloody Assizes” began, Randolph wrote to Robert Southwell that he had never thought Kirke was a fit man for governor and now he saw that he would be a tyrant. As Randolph himself expected to go to New England in the capacity of secretary and register, he felt that he had also a personal interest in the question. He foresaw that the harder Kirke pressed the people, the more difficult would be the task of the secretary; “So that,” writes Randolph, “I must expect betwixt governor and people to be ground to powder.” I had rather have £100 a year in New England under a quiet prudent governor than £500 if he [Kirke] were upon the place.”¹ As a way of escape from the perils which he saw ahead, he suggested his own appointment as governor of the Bermuda islands.

But the plan of Kirke’s appointment was soon dropped, and instead it was resolved² that Randolph should go to New England as secretary and register and with a continuance of his authority as an officer of the customs, and that he should carry with him a commission for a temporary government. Months before he had been in correspondence with Joseph Dudley³ respecting the chances of appointment for the latter and for some of his friends in New England. Apparently before Kirke was thought of for governor Randolph had fixed upon Dudley as the most suitable man for the place. Randolph had urged the appointment of Dudley as receiver general for New England and held other suggestions in reserve for a later opportunity. He recommended that members of the council should be New Englanders, and submitted a long list of names of those whom he considered suitable for appointment. He was also favorable to the continuance of an assembly. In September, 1685, the royal commission⁴ for the temporary government of New England

384

by a president was issued. As in the case of the provisional government of New Hampshire, the first appointees, with one or two exceptions, were residents of New England. Joseph Dudley was named as president and with him were associated seventeen councillors, Randolph, its secretary, being one. All were selected from Massachusetts except Robert Mason and John Hinckes, who were from New Hampshire, while Francis Champernowne and Edward Tyng were from Maine, and Fitz-John Winthrop from King’s Province. Stoughton, Bulkely, Bradstreet, and Pynchon were prominent among the members from Massachusetts. Among the councillors were only two Anglicans, Mason and Randolph.

The president was empowered to select any one of the council to act as deputy. Seven were to constitute a quorum. They were to meet in Boston within twenty days after the arrival of the commission and take the oath of allegiance, and the same oath should be administered to all office holders. A special oath was also to be taken that they would administer justice and faithfully perform their trust. They were not given legislative power, nor power to lay new taxes, but they were authorized to establish courts, act as a court of appeal and highest resort, appoint military officers, and provide for defence. They were also to see that existing taxes were collected, and freedom of conscience was insured, especially for Anglicans. They were, in short, to act as the general administrative body in the province until a permanent government should be established. The old seal of the colony was to be used until further order. They were commanded to send quarterly a full account of their proceedings to England. Appeals to the king should be allowed in cases which involved not less than £300. Dudley was appointed vice admiral, Wharton judge of admiralty, Randolph postmaster, secretary and register, and surveyor of the woods.¹

Owing to delay caused by storms, Randolph did not arrive in Boston with the commission until May, 1686. He came in the Rose frigate. Immediately steps were taken to establish the new government. Two of those who were designated

385

as councillors—Bradstreet and Saltonstall—declined to serve. Some of the ministers, among them Increase Mather, labored with Dudley to persuade him not to accept,¹ but without success.

As Randolph was a representative of the class of royal officials of English birth who were coming to have a permanent influence on American affairs, so Joseph Dudley was one among an increasing number of colonists who were ready to strike hands with the agents of the king and share in every respect their obligations and advantages. Outside of New England a career like that of Dudley would not have called for special remark. The middle and southern colonies contained not a few men of his type who, because they were born and reared on the new continent, did not for that reason think themselves excluded from sympathy with the spirit and aims of the ruling classes in England. The activities of these men in trade, in the professions, and in public office, preserved the harmonious cooperation of colonies and fatherland. The extent to which the sympathies of Puritan New England were divorced from the England of the Restoration is indicated by the sharp criticism which Dudley’s career called forth from the Mathers at the time, and has elicited from those in later times who have found in the Puritan commonwealth a peculiar object of admiration. That Dudley was ambitious of worldly preferment, that his training as a lawyer and his experience as agent in England developed and strengthened this ambition, is quite clear. His letters, as well as those of Randolph, show that at least as soon as the proceedings in chancery had made the issue of the decree against the charter a certainty, Dudley began to seek employment in the reorganized government. He consciously chose to act as a mediator in an important transition, to order his life with a view to the prospects of the dawning empire. Though a career of this kind lacked the element of heroism which characterized the lives of the first settlers, it was quite as necessary as theirs and in its way as useful. The critic who would order his

386

judgments with a view to the issues of our colonial development as a whole will not characterize Joseph Dudley as a traitor, but consider it on the whole fortunate that so able a New Englander as he was available for service at this crisis.

On May 17, at a session of the general court, the establishment of the new government was proclaimed. Sewall, who describes the scene,¹ says that the “old government” drew to the north side of the room in the town house where the court sat, while Dudley and a number of those who were to be his councillors came in on the left. Captain George of the king’s frigate, Governor Hinckley of Plymouth, and Governor West of South Carolina—then visiting in Boston—were also present. “The Room pretty well filled with Spectators in an instant.” After the assembly had gathered, Dudley addressed them at some length. He said that he could not meet them as governor and company, but only as an assembly of “considerable gentlemen of this place and inhabitants of all parts of the country.” Neither could he capitulate with them respecting the king’s commands. He denied² the truth of charges which had evidently been made that he had put himself forward as a candidate for office under the new regime, that he might thereby pay off old grudges. He pledged himself instead to forget, as far as was possible, all injuries and prejudices, and to serve the colony both at home and in England to the best of his power. After the close of his speech, the commissions of government and of admiralty were shown, as was the letter of transmission from the council. Danforth, the deputy governor, then said, “I suppose you expect no reply from the Court.” To this Dudley answered, “I know no court here in being till the king’s Court be in order and settled.” To the council he declared that the alterations in the administration of government would be few, and would be made as plain and easy as possible.

The court then adjourned till October. Says Sewall, “The adjournment which had been agreed before, . . . was declared by the weeping Marshal General. Many tears shed

387

in prayer and at parting.” Thus the government of Massachusetts under the old charter came to an end. The political indifference of many is evident. Even Sewall did not favor a protest, but well expressed the perplexity even of the leaders when he queried, “The foundations being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Three days later a part of the court, in a paper signed by Secretary Rawson,¹ replied to the president that it found in the commission for the new government no certain rule for the administration of justice, and the provisions it did contain on that subject seemed too arbitrary. It found also that “subjects are abridged of their libertyes as Englishmen both in the matters of legislation and in the Law of Taxes, and indeed the whole unquestioned privilege of the subject transferred upon yourselves, there not being the least mention of an assembly in the Commission.” Still, though they could not assent to the change, they hoped to demean themselves as loyal subjects of the king and in the meantime would pray for relief.²

On May 25 the president and council held their first³ meeting. An exemplification of the judgment against the charter was read, as was the commission of government directed to the president and council. The oaths of allegiance and of office were then taken. After this the president and council took their seats upon the bench, and the president addressed the people who were assembled. After stating that the council, “all excuses set aside,” were required to serve the king in the government of New England, he called upon all subjects to render them their loyal and dutiful support. He said that the changes in the methods of government would be few, and they would be made as plain and easy as possible. The recognition of freedom of worship he referred to as an assurance of the just intentions of the king. But if any imagined that license would be given to vice or immorality, they would find the contrary to be true.

388

After the proclamation¹ of the government had been read and ordered to be published by beat of drum in Boston and sent to all the other towns, the transaction of business according to the forms of the royal province was begun. Justices of the peace were appointed for the three counties of Massachusetts and for the provinces of Maine and New Hampshire. Dates were set for the holding of the county courts, and regulations were made concerning their jurisdiction and concerning procedure in the transaction of all kinds of legal business. In deference to the custom of New England a proclamation was issued empowering justices of the peace, as well as ministers, to celebrate marriages. For the first time in New England history, provision was specially made by law for keeping a record of births, deaths, and marriages. Military commissions were ordered to be drawn, and Randolph had brought over some English flags for use. William Stoughton was appointed deputy president, and John Usher, a Boston merchant and a member of the council, was made treasurer of the province.

On June 2, in accordance with the commission, orders were passed for the continuance of the existing customs and excise, provision being also made that the rules for their collection which were already in force should be obeyed. The powder duty was ordered to be collected. Constables were required to bring in the rates as usual. A table of judicial fees was also issued. Thus the fiscal systems of the colonies which were combined into the new province were continued. The bounds²of townships were also confirmed. The right of towns to hold elections and to instruct their officials respecting the management of town affairs was recognized. All contracts which had been made between towns and their ministers, schoolmasters, or any other parties were confirmed. Committees which had been appointed for the government of villages and outlying plantations were continued. A committee was appointed by the council to revise the laws, but this was not completed until after the arrival

389

of Governor Andros,¹ when a new and larger body was designated.

The comparatively liberal spirit of the president and the council is also indicated by an instruction² which was given to Robert Mason, when in June he returned to England as the bearer of an address to the king and of a letter to the committee of trade. It was that the royal interests, as well as the prosperity of the province, would be advanced if the right to hold assemblies was granted. The need of a mint or of some provision for a local coinage was also suggested. In the letter to the committee of trade the request was made that their lordships would provide for the prompt filling of vacancies in the council; while, as a further indication of the new spirit of cordial support which was to animate the government of New England, they told what care their council had taken to guard the rights of the king, to enforce the acts of trade, and to place the control of the militia in trusted hands.

The council held frequent sessions, these often continuing through two successive days. They were held every week or once in two weeks. The work of the council was partly judicial and partly administrative in character. It was such as the board of assistants had done before the revocation of the charter. Of legislation in the proper sense of the term the council attempted nothing. In this, as in all other respects, the temporary character of the government by president and council is apparent. The only important removal which was made was that of Danforth from the presidency of the council of Maine; but that was unavoidable. Bulkely refused to act as commander of the castle, and Wait Winthrop was appointed in his place. Dudley showed throughout that he intended to conciliate the people of Massachusetts as much as possible. Neither from him, nor from the other New England men who composed the council, could great innovations be expected. They all acted from the first upon the knowledge that their government was provisional.

The change which awakened the greatest interest among

390

the people at large was the beginning of Anglican worship in Boston. Nothing of that character had been known to the generation then living. So far as we are informed, the Prayer Book had never been used in public worship in any of the Puritan colonies. The professions which were made at the time of the migration had proved a dead letter. But the English authorities, especially Randolph, had made it a special care to procure a clergyman of the Established Church. The one secured was Robert Ratcliff, and he came in the frigate with Randolph. He had been recommended by the Bishop of London, and brought with him a letter from the lords of trade. He was provided with prayer books and the usual accessories which were required in the worship of the English Church.

The curious interest which was felt in the doings of Mr. Ratcliff is indicated by Sewall.¹ On May 18 Sewall notes that two weddings were celebrated by “Mr. Randolph’s chaplain,” one at Mr. Shrimpton’s and the other at the town house. In each case a ring was borrowed for the occasion. When, on the second day of its session, the minister applied to the council for the assignment of a place in which to hold service, Mason and Randolph proposed that he might be admitted to one of the three churches in Boston. This was refused, and he was granted “the east end of the Townhouse, where the Deputies used to meet, until those who desire his ministry should provide a fitter place.”²

On the following Sunday Sewall records that his son read to him in course the 26th chapter of Isaiah and they then sang the 141st Psalm, “both exceedingly suited to this day, wherein there is to be worship according to the Church of England, as t’is called, in the Town House, by Countenance of Authority.”³ He was later informed that “many crowded thither,” drawn of course by curiosity; but they found that as yet no pulpit was provided, though the minister preached both forenoon and afternoon. Randolph wrote soon after to the Archbishop of Canterbury, that the room in the town

391

house had been found too small and that services had been removed to the exchange. But some of the people had been heard to call “our minister Baal’s priest, and one of their ministers from the pulpit called our praiers leeks, garlick and trash.”

Randolph was also much troubled by his inability to secure from the president and council an appropriation for the support of Mr. Ratcliff. He thought that 20s. per week might be taken from the collections in each of the other three churches for the purpose. He soon began to look with greedy eyes on the fund which had been accumulated by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, and desired that a part of it should be used for the building of a church. But all of these plans failed, and the council, as well as all others, were resolved that Anglican worship should be supported by those who chose to attend upon it. Randolph noted with sorrow the fact that Mr. Mason and himself were the only members of the council who were Anglicans, while among more than sixty officers in the militia there were only two captains and two or three inferior officers who were not members of the churches of New England or constant attendants upon their services.¹ Dudley, he wrote, while in London had pretended to be of the Church of England, “yet since he is made President, courts and keeps private cabals with these factious ministers and others, who, in the time of Monmouth’s Rebellion refused to pray for his Majesty.” The utter weakness of the Anglican cause in New England made Randolph despair, and set him longing for the arrival of a royal governor, whose influence and prestige he hoped would galvanize the cause into life and activity.

But there were other reasons which added to the dissatisfaction that soon became the dominant note in Randolph’s correspondence. Among these he laid special emphasis on his inability to secure from Dudley and the council what he considered proper support in his efforts to regulate trade.

392

In his collisions with the department of the navy, as represented by Captain George and his men, he claimed that he was not properly upheld. To this reference has been made in another connection. He also complained that his business as secretary and register was taken from him and bestowed on others, that he was unable to get possession of the records which belonged to that office, and that his fees from that service suffered materially. After Andros’s arrival he tried to recover from Dudley something under this head, but his effort was unsuccessful.¹

Now Randolph had brought his wife to the colony, and even by the captain of the frigate an outrageous scandal was circulated affecting her reputation.² In part to the sufferings they both endured he attributed her death, about a year later. For this accumulation of troubles Randolph now held Dudley largely responsible. In his letters he charged the president with being “a man of a base, servile and anti-monarchial principle.” He was declared to be in alliance with Randolph’s foes and with the enemies of the English government. He could not be trusted. Randolph assumed the same to be true in the case of several members of the council. Stoughton, he said, was “of the old leaven”; Richards, “a man not to be trusted in public business”; and Hinckley, ex-governor of Plymouth, he pronounced “a rigid Independent.”³ Others were like these, and, if Randolph’s representations are worthy of belief, the council was torn by dissensions, and the situation little improved by the substitution of it for government under the charter. He was also worried by the arrival of some nonconformist emigrants from Scotland, with others from Ireland and elsewhere,—fugitives from the Catholic reaction, which was then in progress. He feared that a large migration of this character might result.⁴ His fears and animosities Randolph, as usual, fully stated in his letters to the committee of trade, to Blathwayt and to Archbishop Sancroft. His feelings furnished him with

393

arguments for the speedy despatch of a royal governor to New England, for in Randolph’s opinion no security was to be expected till this was done.

Randolph’s anxieties were relieved by the arrival of Sir Edmund Andros in Boston, late in December, 1686, with a commission and instructions as governor of all New England except Rhode Island and Connecticut. Save in a few points which related to conditions that were peculiar to New England, the commission and instructions were identical with those which at the same time were issued to Governor Dongan of New York. The evident purpose of the crown in granting them was to transplant in New England the system of government which was already in existence in New York. The wide difference between the two sections is proven by the changes which that policy was intended to secure in New England, and by the aversion with which the policy was viewed by the majority of New Englanders.

New York had not yet become accustomed to a legislative assembly. Such assemblies were the centre and foundation of the New England system. In New York the executive legislated for the province, and appropriated, collected, and expended the revenue. In New England these activities originated with the representative assemblies. In New York conformity with English law and recognition of the sovereignty of the crown were sought as objects of prime importance. In New England this had been avoided or unwillingly acknowledged. The New York executive welcomed the support of the English government, and willingly reported to it all transactions in the province. When Andros came that obligation was for the first time imposed upon the Puritan colonies of New England. If the regime which he was sent to establish continued, not only would the oath of allegiance be generally taken and laws submitted to the king for his approval, but suits which involved £300 or

394

more might be transferred to England on appeal. In New York also the king was expressly recognized as the source of land titles; land was granted to individuals and was legally, if not actually, subject to a quit rent. In New England land had been granted to corporate bodies known as towns, and was not subject to a quit rent. Under this system much land within easy reach of settlements might remain unoccupied and unimproved for indefinite periods and yet not be subject to grant except by the towns themselves. If favorites and officials were to be supplied with valuable tracts conveniently located, if the system of quit rents was to be made universal, a policy like that of enclosures in England might be deemed necessary. Finally, the adherent of the English Church was welcomed in New York, while in Massachusetts he was almost abhorred.

Those who would understand what Andros attempted in New England should study his career in New York and the Jerseys. It will appear that his method in the two administrations was substantially the same. He failed in New England because the New York system, as it then was, and the spirit of royal administration which was substantially in harmony therewith, were so different from the conditions that were original in New England.

The intention of the crown, in sending Andros again to America, was to organize the dominion of New England. This was intended to include all the colonies north and east of the Delaware river. It was to comprise, in other words, the territory which in 1620 had been granted to the New England Council; or, to go still further back, the northern Virginia which had made its first appearance on the map with the issue of the charters of 1606 and 1609. The plan was a revival of the dream of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. Between the close of 1686 and the spring of 1689 Sir Edmund Andros labored to establish the dominion which Gorges had failed to erect in 1636. Had the plan succeeded, we may imagine that New York and not Massachusetts would have ultimately proved the centre of the Dominion and would have been the seat of its government. At any rate, the spirit of its administrative system would have animated the

395

whole. We may further imagine that, if tendencies which were dominant in 1685 had triumphed, Virginia would soon have formed the nucleus around which the provinces south of the fortieth parallel would have been gathered, and the system originally foreshadowed in the charter of 1606 would have been realized.

The state system of America, like that of Europe, has exhibited in its development variations upon a few original types. To the crown lawyer and to the statesman of the autocratic temper this scheme of colonial union, planned and executed by the crown, was attractive and inspiring. If found practicable, it would remove many obstacles from the path of administrators. But how had later events, in which crown as well as colonist had borne a share, contributed to subdivide the ancient territories and to plant there peoples and institutions of varying types! Would it be possible, by any administrative device, to overcome the divergences of these colonies and weld them into an organic whole? The difficulties attending this task in New England would be great. How much greater would they be when it came to the uniting of New England with New York and the Jerseys?

When Randolph was sent to New England in 1685 the delivery of the commission to Dudley and the council was only one part of his errand. He was also intrusted with writs of quo warranto against the corporations of Rhode Island and Connecticut. When, in November, 1684,¹ the committee of trade and plantations was considering the organization of New England under a president and council, it noted the fact that the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut were not yet vacated. Randolph, Blathwayt, and their associates were aware² that the coterie of Quakers and of friends of Connecticut which was now managing the affairs of Rhode Island would probably not stand suit if a writ was issued against them. In this they were not deceived.

During the early months of 1685 the authorities in England

396

were considering¹ the question, whether process should be immediately issued against Rhode Island and Connecticut or whether it should be delayed until the general governor was sent over. This proves that the recall of the charters of those colonies was from the first regarded as an incident of the permanent adjustment of New England affairs. Owing very likely to the delay caused by the death of Charles II and the change of resolution concerning the appointment of Colonel Kirke, it was decided not to wait until the appointment of a general governor. In May, 1685, Randolph was ordered to prepare articles of misdemeanor against the two colonies in question, as he had previously done in the case of Massachusetts, on the strength of which writs of quo warranto might be issued. These, in somewhat loose and perfunctory terms, he submitted in the following July.²

The government of Rhode Island was charged with levying taxes illegally, with denying appeals to the king, with passing laws repugnant to those of England and refusing to allow the laws of England to be pleaded in her courts. It was also charged that her representatives and magistrates did not take the oaths required by law, and that her inhabitants were guilty of violations of the acts of trade. Connecticut ’was charged with passing laws which were repugnant to those of England, with imposing fines on the inhabitants and using the proceeds for the support of its government. She was declared to have forbidden Anglicans to celebrate worship according to the ritual of their church; to have excluded inhabitants from justice in their courts and kept the government in the hands of the Independent party to the exclusion of all men of known loyalty.

The committee of trade having reported that these charges furnished a sufficient basis for the issue of an information, the council ordered that Attorney General Sawyer should proceed. Against Connecticut two writs were issued, one dated July 6 and the other August 3, 1685. The first writ required the appearance of the governor and company before

397

the king, wherever he should be in England, on November 18, 1685. The second writ was returnable April 19, 1686. Writs were at the same time issued against the proprietors of the two Jerseys and of the Three Counties on the Delaware, but these latter were served, if at all, in England.¹

The writ against Rhode Island was not issued until the spring of 1686. A copy of it was received through Randolph on June 22. As soon as it was served Rhode Island made formal submission to the crown.² This act was accompanied with a request that the inhabitants might still enjoy their religious freedom, that Newport might continue a free port, and that no persons should be appointed to office among them whose character suited not the constitution of the colony. This action removed all difficulties connected with the return of the writ and trial in England. The submission was accepted and, on the arrival of Andros, Rhode Island was at once incorporated as a part of the dominion of New England.

But Connecticut was not yet inclined to submit, and in its case the English authorities found themselves involved in the same technical difficulties connected with the service of the writ which Randolph had foreseen, and by which they had been baffled in the suit against Massachusetts. Though the second of the two writs against Connecticut was returnable in April, 1686, Randolph, owing to a delay of several months in sailing, did not arrive with it in Boston until May of that same year. He then wrote to the governor and council with the information that he had writs against them and asked to meet some of their magistrates in the Narragansett country, whither he was going to attend the establishment of the authority of President Dudley and his council in the King’s Province. In this letter he suggested the argument which in the end was to prove decisive; that, if they did not submit, the colony would be divided and the western half of it would be annexed to New York. No meeting in the Narragansett

398

country occurred, but Randolph served the writ, July 20, 1686, though at the time it was apparent that the period set for the return in England had already expired and for that reason the service was legally¹ futile.

The general court was called together in special session on July 6 and again on July 28, to consider the question.² It was resolved to answer the writ through counsel and also to petition the king for the continuance of their bounds and liberties. William Whiting of London was appointed agent and authorized to employ counsel-at-law and defend the charter. “You are seriously to consider and devise,” he was instructed, “whether there be not a lapse in law of the said writs, and so not obliging [us] to appear and make answer until new writs (if any) be ordered against us.” The notification which they had received from the under-sheriff of Middlesex they thought was not binding; but, if it was so, a defence should be made, and a plea submitted based on the terms of the charter and on accepted rules as to their interpretation. The counsel should also ask that sufficient time be allowed for them to answer charges. If judgment was likely to be pronounced, then by petition or in some other way they should secure its suspension until the corporation was able to speak for itself or make further addresses to the king. If this was not possible, they would address themselves to the task of preventing a division of the colony. In the petition to the king he was asked to pardon all the mistakes and failures of the past and to cause legal proceedings to be abandoned. Neither in this, nor in the document which accompanied it and which stated the reasons why Connecticut should not be divided, was any reference made to the possibility of surrender. But with the instructions to Whiting went the draft of another address, which was apparently intended for presentation in case judgment against the charter should be rendered. In this the resolve was ex-pressed to submit to the will of the king, if he determined to change their civil government, asking only that liberty of conscience might be continued, that their property in land

399

might be confirmed, that they might have convenient ports of entry, and that their trade with the neighboring colonies might be free from all duties except those for which provision was made by a statute.¹

But, on October 23, 1686, a third quo warranto was issued, identical with the first two and returnable February 9, 1687. This was served on December 28, 1686. Eight days before this Andros had arrived in Boston, bringing among his instructions a clause providing that in case Connecticut “shall be induced to make surrender of their charter . . . to receive such surrender” and take that colony under his government. Upon receiving notice of this from Andros and after the service of the third writ, a letter was sent by the general court to the Earl of Sunderland, then secretary of state, setting forth that it was impossible for them to appear for trial as early as the beginning of February. They said that they heartily desired to remain as they were; “but if his Majesty’s royal purpose be otherwise to dispose of us, we shall, as in duty bound, submit to his royal commands.” They simply asked, in case a change became inevitable, that they might be joined with the New England colonies.² Statements to the same general effect were also made in letters from the authorities of Connecticut to Andros.

Though the surrender of a charter, in order to be effective in law, must be under the seal of the corporation, this admission of an intention to submit was at once accepted in England as for practical purposes sufficient. Upon receiving the letter from Connecticut quo warranto proceedings were at once dropped and an order³ from the privy council was sent to Andros to take Connecticut under his government and appoint Treat and Allyn members of the council of New England. The correspondence between Andros and the government of Connecticut had continued through the spring and summer, but without apparent progress toward

400

a result. Governor Dongan had also exerted himself for the purpose of inducing Connecticut to join New York, and letters had been exchanged on the subject, but without agreement.¹ As soon as the decision of the home government reached Andros he started for Hartford.² On arriving there he met the governor and assistants, and arrangements for the submission were made. The next morning, October 31, in the presence of the general court, Andros had his commission read, and assured them that all their liberties should be preserved. Treat and Allyn then received the oath as councillors, and the establishment of the new government was formally accepted by the general court. After organizing courts at Hartford, and visiting the other counties, where tribunals were also organized, the governor returned to Boston.

In the man-of-war with Andros, December 20, 1686,³ came sixty regulars—the “redcoats,” whose presence had never before been seen in New England. The governor’s commission was read, and he at once took the oath of allegiance. The oaths of office and allegiance were administered to those of the councillors who were present. Other members were later sworn, until the council, prior to the annexation of Connecticut, numbered twenty-seven. Edward Randolph, who held the office of secretary and register until May, 1687, when he leased it to John West⁴ of New York as his deputy, for £150 a year, continued to hold his seat in the council. So did nearly all of the former members. At the third session Walter Clarke and the members from Rhode Island took their seats. The governor demanded of them the delivery of their charter. They replied that it was at the governor’s house in Newport, and would be forthcoming when sent for. Andros ordered that it should be brought and delivered into the custody of the

401

secretary. Proclamations were issued confirming officers in their places throughout the colonies which composed the dominion. But these were soon followed by an order that new commissions be made out for them. Town officers were still to be elected and were to act within their jurisdictions as formerly. The issue of new commissions of course gave an opportunity for large changes in the personnel of office holders, appointments both in the civil and the military service being generally made on nomination by members of the council.¹ Town officers continued to be elected as usual. The council, had all of its members ever been present, would have equalled in number the lower houses in many of the colonial assemblies. But it rarely happened that even approximately the whole number was in attendance, and its business was usually done by from six to ten members. In reality, therefore, though it was empowered to legislate for all New England, its active membership was little larger than that of the ordinary provincial council. The only security for its independence lay in the fact that all its members, except Randolph, were residents of New England. But this was scarcely adequate, for its methods of doing business were largely determined by the governor. His influence over its sessions, as well as over its members outside the formal sessions, was likely to be very great.

The forms of a legislative body were maintained, at least to an extent, by the appointment of committees to prepare measures and by debate upon them when they were submitted. Thus, on December 31, a committee with Dudley at its head, and the quorum of which consisted of one member from each colony, was appointed to report on methods of administering justice; on courts, their times and places of session, their jurisdiction, forms, and fees. This committee reported to the next session as ordered, and after a debate on the several articles Mr. Wharton and the secretary were instructed to arrange them and submit them again to the council. We find nothing more of importance on the subject, except an order

402

that courts should continue to be held at the usual times and places in Plymouth and Rhode Island, until the 24th of February. At that time a bill for establishing courts was debated at considerable length, the governor refusing to consent that trials about titles to land should be held in King’s Province until the pleasure of the king was known. At later sessions the dates on which the quarterly courts should be held throughout the dominion were fixed, and it was ordered that all writs should be issued in the king’s name. Long debates followed between proprietors of the Narragansett country and members from Rhode Island over the place of holding the grand assizes there. Finally, the bill was passed by the governor, December, 1687.¹ It provided for a court of quarter sessions and an inferior court of common pleas within each county, and for a superior court of judicature, which should possess the highest common law jurisdiction throughout the whole dominion. Provision was also made for a court of chancery, and for the sessions of all the courts. Their jurisdiction and procedure were to be as near like those of the corresponding courts in England as possible. Appeals to the crown were fully provided for. Dudley, Stoughton, and Bulkely were appointed judges of the superior court. Dudley, acting as chief justice, received a salary of £150 and the others £120 each.² Salaries were paid out of the revenue of the territory. When Connecticut was annexed, the judicial system thus created was extended over that colony also. It is interesting to note that as long as this arrangement continued the towns of Hampshire county in Massachusetts had to repair to Hartford for the trial of all their cases which came within the jurisdiction of the superior court.³.

An even more important task than that of the establishment of courts of justice was that of providing a revenue. The former revenue could only be continued for a time. It soon became necessary that positive provision should be made for the levy of taxes, and that by an appointed, not an elected body. On January 4, 1687, it was ordered that the usual

403

country rate of a penny in the pound be collected throughout the dominion, and an instruction was issued to the treasurer accordingly. Later, provision was made for a capitation tax, an excise, and an import duty.¹ The whole was then combined in one bill which, in the session of March 1, was warmly debated. Some urged that the valuation set upon horses and oxen in the bill was too high, but the reply was made that it was taken from the printed law under the title public charges. Objection was also made that a proposed levy of a halfpenny an acre on pasture land was not mentioned in the law book. Stoughton, Hinckley, Wharton, and Walley, in order to secure amendments, objected to having the bill passed at that session. It, however, was read a second time and ordered to be engrossed. A proviso was also introduced that it should continue in force until the governor, with the advice of the council, should establish other rates and taxes.

We are told by Stoughton and those councillors who were associated with him in writing the² “Narrative of Proceedings of Sir Edmond Androsse and his complices,” that a very considerable number of the members were opposed to this bill. But the governor supported it with not a little heat, falling back for justification, as he had been wont to do in New York, on his instructions. He prolonged the sessions, they thought unnecessarily, because of it. When they broke up, they did not think the bill agreed to. But the next day, when it was brought in engrossed, he quietly signed it, “without any counting of voices either then or the day before, which was the more needful because some did continue still to make their objections, others that had spoken against the bill the day before declaring their adherence to what they had then said.” Others sat still, not because they were convinced, but because they saw it was of no use to oppose. The first resistance which the new government encountered was in the collection of the country rate provided for by this law. Nearly all the towns of Essex county, Massachusetts, and some elsewhere, refused to pay the rate. In Ipswich,³ for example, which was

404

the largest town of the northeast, when the town meeting met under a warrant from Treasurer Usher to choose a commissioner to act with the selectmen in assessing the rates, it was resolved that such an act would be an infringement of their liberties as freeborn Englishmen, and inconsistent with the statutes of the “land,” according to which no taxes were to be levied except with the consent of an assembly elected by the freeholders for that purpose. A commissioner was not chosen and the selectmen were ordered not to proceed without authority from an assembly. John Wise, the minister, and John Appleton, who had previously been an assistant, were the leaders in the act of resistance. They with four others were arrested and cast into jail at Boston. The writ of habeas corpus having been denied, after imprisonment they were brought to trial before Dudley, Stoughton, Usher, and Randolph as judges, and a jury. The accused pleaded that the old law of assessment had been repealed by the general court four years before and that by Magna Carta and later statutes they were secured against arbitrary levies. Dudley, who was chief justice, told the prisoners that they must not think the laws of England followed them to the ends of the earth. Wise testified that the justice upon examination said to him, “You have no more privileges left you than not to be sold for slaves,” though it requires evidence of unusual strength to establish the credibility of such a statement. The jury was composed partly of strangers and, the accused claimed, of non-freeholders, introduced into it “to serve the present turn.” All the accused were pronounced guilty and remanded to prison, where they were kept three weeks awaiting judgment. Then they were sentenced. Wise was suspended from ministerial functions, was fined £50 and costs, and put under bonds for good behavior during one year. The other prisoners were declared disqualified to hold office, fined and put under bonds. The costs of the trial, in fees and fines, was estimated at £400.

Stoughton and his fellow councillors criticise in a most suggestive way the legislative methods to which Andros commonly resorted. They say that the way in which bills

405

were proposed and passed was uncertain, for after they had become well established in office, the governor and secretary neglected to notify the councillors of the sessions wherein laws were to be passed. Bills were also framed in private and sprung upon the council without warning. No care was taken to count favorable or adverse votes, and orders were recorded as passed which were really not approved by the majority of the councillors. When members urged that the consideration of important matters might be postponed until a fuller attendance could be secured, such motions were always received by the governor with displeasure; “So that it might be too truly affirmed, that in effect four or five persons, and those not so favorably inclined and disposed as were to be wished for, bear the Rule over and gave law to a Territory the largest and most considerable of any belonging to the Dominion of the crown.”

Soon after the arrival of Andros, as already stated, a committee was appointed to extract from the law books of the colonies a collection of laws which, when devised, should serve as a code for the dominion. Its members were Dudley, Stoughton, Wharton, Hinckley, Walley, Clarke, Coggeshall, a fair representation not only of the ability of the council, but of the colonies which up to that time had been united in the dominion. When these laws came before the council for consideration, the one concerning towns and the contracts which they had made with their ministers and schoolmasters was first read. Thereupon Walter Clarke objected that the ministers of New England were as truly dissenters as were the Quakers, and therefore ought to be supported by voluntary contributions. To this Hinckley, Walley, and others strongly objected, alleging that a principal condition which was imposed upon towns at their creation was the maintenance of a settled ministry. At the instance of the governor the discussion was postponed, but on the second session after, when the title covering cornfields and fences was under consideration, Hinckley produced a paper and read it in council. At this Andros took offence and demanded the paper. Clarke also moved that all persons in the townships who had not actually agreed to support the minister should

406

be left to contribute or not as they chose. This, however, does not seem to have come to a vote.

Andros and his associates had already approached the towns from more than one direction, and there were indications that these jurisdictions would prove to be the final, perhaps the insuperable, obstacle in their path. The plan which had earlier been formed to compile a code of New England law was abandoned when, in May, 1687, West became secretary, because as things were it was found that in such a compilation a considerable place must be given to the towns. When a far-reaching attack upon that feature of New England institutions was contemplated, it would be plainly unwise to give added sanction to the towns by incorporating their law in a new code.

The point at which the governor and the most influential councillors directly aimed was land titles. In the town grants and the deeds which had hitherto been issued in New England no adequate recognition had been made of the fact that, in the colonies, as elsewhere, the king was the source of rights to land. In a general way it was of course understood that their origin was in the king, and that view had been firmly maintained in the controversy with Roger Williams. But in legal documents the line of connection had rarely, if ever, been traced back beyond the colony charter. Grants had commonly been made without the use of the colony seal, though the charter required that it should be used in all transactions of the company.¹ In the formulation of town grants, in the system of town allotments by which land generally passed into private ownership, there was much in New England practice which, from the standpoint of English law, was irregular or at least novel and undefined. The towns were not expressly incorporated, and this quality it was beyond the power of the governments in the corporate colonies to grant them. This, said Randolph, left them in the same legal condition as villages in England and without authority to hold² land. If this was true and the Andros government should seek to act upon it, not only could they

407

overthrow the town system, but the validity of land titles throughout New England would be seriously impaired. In comparison with such an attack as this upon New England institutions, the levy of taxes under executive authority alone would be superficial. At any rate, the situation was such as to call for a general examination of patents and the grant at least of many new ones. This was a process not uncommon in the provinces, and with it Andros had become familiar in New York. It gave the desired occasion not only for the levy of fees for administrative duties performed during the process, but for the imposition of a quit rent as a condition of the regrants.

Within the town grants lay also many tracts of unoccupied or unimproved land—town necks, stinted commons, pastures and woodland—which had not yet been divided into lots and granted to individual owners.¹ In most or all instances these areas were subject to some form of joint utilization by the town itself where they were situated or by a group of proprietors. In not a few cases the poor inhabitants of towns profited by the use of such commons. They were tracts such as those which the large farmers and graziers of England and Ireland had long been seeking to appropriate in various ways and especially by means of enclosure acts. Their existence in New England soon attracted the attention of needy and greedy councillors, like Randolph, and West, Palmer, and Graham of the New York group. Randolph in particular began to petition for grants from these commons in a number of towns in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, though evidence is lacking that Andros sought personal enrichment in this way. In this connection resurveys were called for, a course of policy which West and Palmer had been pursuing, greatly to their own profit and to that of Graham, in the settlements about Pemaquid. The possession of islands was sought in similar manner. In this way another form of attack upon the towns and upon the land system of New England was perfected.

When the New Englanders came to realize what was intended,

408

they were filled with alarm. Though not more than twenty amended grants passed the seal during the entire administration of Andros,¹ to the colonists every thing seemed to be unsettled. A general inquiry into land titles must necessarily create much more disturbance in New England than in any province, whether proprietary or royal, because of the peculiar nature of the town system and the absence of quit rents. From a system of tenant right in any form the New Englanders had sought to escape, and almost nothing which suggested it had been allowed to find a lodgment among them. When Joseph Lynde of Charlestown traced the title of his lands back to a grant of the general court and to an Indian deed, Andros told him that it was “nothing worth if that were all.” The signatures of Indians he declared to be of no more account than a scratch with a Bear’s paw.”² As Lynde owned several parcels of land in the neighboring counties, Secretary West told him he must take out as many patents as there were counties, if not towns, involved. When the cost of this made him pause, a writ of intrusion upon one of the tracts was issued. Lynde then gave Graham, the attorney general, £3 and offered £10 in addition, with the payment of court charges, if he would let the suit drop. But in this he was unsuccessful, and was told by Graham that writs of intrusion would be very generally issued. The officials repeatedly declared in rough and imperious fashion that all land in New England was the king’s, this being emphatically true since the revocation of the charter. When confronted with a situation like this, it was not surprising that the leaders in Massachusetts felt much more inclined to emphasize the importance of Indian titles than their ancestors had seemed to do when the question was argued with Roger Williams. As was to be expected, the clergymen took a hand, and in a famous debate with Andros, who was supported by West, Palmer, and Graham, Rev. John Higginson of Salem told them that, “ so far as I understood, we received only the right and power of Government from the King’s Charter, . . . but the right of the Land and Soil

409

we had received from God according to his Grand Charter to the Sons of Adam and Noah, and with the consent of the Native Inhabitants.”¹

When Randolph petitioned for Nahant neck, which belonged to the town of Lynn, and for commons in Cambridge, the defendants were met with the statement that there was no such thing as a town in New England. Graham even went so far as to state that Boston was not a town. Randolph, in answer to the Cambridge remonstrants, said that in case they could produce a royal grant to any person or persons and from such persons a legal conveyance to the town, and that it (the town) was sufficient to receive a grant of such lands, then he would cease prosecution. Otherwise, be conceived that the right still remained in the king and he prayed a grant. The attempt to seize Deer island in Boston harbor and Clark’s island at Plymouth affected directly the rights of the colony and of its lessees. The number of writs of intrusion which were actually issued or suggested threatened endless suits, the trials of which would necessitate many long journeys and expenses of uncertain amounts for the defendants,² though it was already apparent that it would be no easier to secure juries which would convict the accused in these suits, than it had been in the revenue cases which Randolph had brought to trial. Only the superior court, with Dudley as presiding judge, could be trusted to do the government’s work.

In March, 1688, by the exercise, it is said, of unusually strong executive pressure, a law was passed which prohibited the holding of town meetings oftener than once a year, and that for the election of town officers.³ Among the officers chosen should be the commissioner from each town whose duty it was to cooperate in the assessment of county rates. Selectmen, in boards of eight, should be elected for terms

410

of two years, one-half going out of office annually. The management of town affairs should rest wholly in the hands of these and the other town officers, town rates even being levied by them under warrants from the county justices, who were appointees of the governor and council. The object of this legislation was to deprive the towns, if possible, of their capacity to become active political centres, and thus to remove the most serious hindrance to the triumph of the government’s policy. During the month following the passage of this act, and in imitation of a measure to which the people of New Hampshire had already resorted under similar circumstances, Rev. Increase Mather, president of the college and an active opponent of Randolph and Andros, went in disguise on board ship and sailed as agent for England. Such was the prospect which confronted both rulers and ruled when Andros departed for New York and the Jerseys to receive their government and annex them to the dominion.

This change was effected during the month of August, 1688.¹ By steps which the scanty documents of the time do not clearly reveal, the proprietors of both East and West Jersey had been induced to surrender the rights of government which they had so long struggled, though with indifferent success, to assert over their provinces. Dongan was ordered to resign the governorship of New York. A new commission and set of instructions had been prepared extending the authority which Andros had been exercising in New England proper as far south as the Delaware river and the fortieth parallel, and, with the exception of Pennsylvania and the Lower Counties, comprising the territory westward to the South Sea and northward to the river of Canada. To this vast region the name of “Our Territory and Dominion of New England in America” was now expressly given. Francis Nicholson was appointed by the king to be lieutenant governor of the dominion, and New York was designated as his residence. In instructions to Andros, a proportionate number was added to the council from New York and the

411

Jerseys. The powers which had been exercised by the governor general and council under the commission of 1686 were extended over the entire territory or vice-royalty. The responsibility of Andros’s position, as well as its dignity, was much increased by the fact that he now had the chief control over Indian affairs for all English America. One of the most important items of business to which it was necessary for him to attend on this visit was the holding of a conference with the Indians at Albany.

The plan which Andros, under orders from the king, lawyers, and officials in England, was trying to execute was the complete consolidation of the colonies in this dominion under one all-embracing executive power. Had the plan succeeded, the tendencies originating in private enterprise, to which the colonies chiefly owed their origin, would have been crushed out and superseded. States rights would have been smothered in the cradle. Large vice-royalties, with much of the uniformity and autocratic rule which characterized French and Spanish colonization, would have taken their place. Commercial regulations would have been more strictly enforced. A uniform, and perhaps a more efficient, policy of defence would have been substituted for the crude and spasmodic efforts of localities or groups of colonies. The system would have been legal, for it rested upon the express will of the king.¹ But it would have done violence to the natural instincts both of Englishmen and of the colonists. While the inhabitants of New York and New Jersey might have quietly submitted to it, in the long run it could have been maintained in New England only by military force. It is also true that the Dutch and English of New York were averse to union with New Englanders. There was no vital sympathy between the two sections. Only a long process of intercourse and growth could break

412

down the barriers of ignorance and prejudice which then separated them. The autocratic spirit and methods of Andros and James II could not really solve such a problem as that. At best only an artificial and forced union would have resulted from their efforts, and when the pressure was removed, the colonies would spontaneously return to their former relations.

And in fact only the first formal steps toward the union of the colonies had been taken, when Andros was called back to Boston by reports that the Indians were becoming restive along the northeastern frontier. In the course of the previous April (1688) he had visited that region and had taken possession of the trading house of Saint Castin, which was situated west of Penobscot bay. He had also taken steps to restore the estates of the English settlers which Palmer and West had attempted to seize the year before. Orders he also left for the repair of the fort at Pemaquid. The restiveness of the Abenaki Indians was now encouraged both by the intrigues of Saint Castin and by the influence of the two Jesuits, Jacques and Vincent Bigot, and when the winter of 1688-1689 set in the English found themselves on the threshold of another Indian war. Andros, in spite of his efforts at first to check the rumors and maintain the peace by proclamation, was forced at last to make a winter expedition to the scene of disturbance along the Maine coast. A considerable body of troops, including a part of the regulars, was taken with him. Long winter marches were made through the forests, but the enemy, who as yet had committed no outrages of consequence, fled into the recesses and avoided conflict. Some of their villages and stores of provisions were destroyed.¹ Andros remained in the region till early in the spring of 1689, superintending the building of a number of small forts. When he returned to Boston, garrisons were left at various points and all reasonable care was taken for the defence of the country.

For our immediate purpose the chief significance of this episode appears in the rumors affecting the good faith of

413

Andros, to which the activity of the Indians gave rise. So intense had feelings of opposition to him and his government become in Massachusetts, that the most false and malignant reports concerning his doings found ready acceptance. It was said, and many depositions on the subject were then or later¹ taken, that the governor had furnished Indians in several localities with arms and ammunition and had encouraged them to attack the English. The statement in various forms was made that he was a papist and was already in league with the French. In this connection it was reported that he had sent for a French squadron and it was on its way to Boston.² In this way many were encouraged to believe that, if the Andros government was permitted longer to exist, New England would be betrayed to the French and the savages would be let loose upon the settlements if they dared to resist.

It is needless to say that these rumors were entirely false and that the conduct of Andros gave no justification for them. And yet they arose naturally out of the uncertainty of the times, both in England and in the colonies, a condition which made Protestants fear that their faith might be in danger. The presence of the Indians was an ever threatening peril, the magnitude of which would be greatly increased if their attacks should be supported by the French. Thus the forces which were largely to determine the course of English and American history for the next seventy years were gathering. We shall see how they affected colonies outside New England, as well as those within that section. They certainly meant serious danger to a system of government which had attacked established traditions so vigorously as Andros and his supporters had done. Though his policy in no way directly imperilled Protestantism, the religious feelings, along with other motives, might easily be appealed to as furnishing the most effective stimulus to revolt. Andros, however, affected to put the charges aside

414

with a contemptuous denial, and when Thomas Browne and John Goodnow¹ of Sudbury brought an Indian to him with the purpose of having his slanderous statements about the governor disproved, they were rudely treated and afterwards put under heavy bonds to keep the peace. This incident, which, in the popular mind, went to confirm the rumors, was closed at the beginning of April, a month which was to witness the collapse, at its very centre, of that imposing structure, the Dominion of New England.

← Vol. III, Pt. IV, Ch. XII   Table of Contents   Vol. III, Pt. IV, Ch. XIV →