The arrival of such a man boded no good to Ma.s.sachusetts. His reception at the town-house was a cold one. Leverett liked neither his looks nor his message, and kept his peaked hat on while he read the letter; when he came to the signature of the king"s chief secretary of state, he asked, with careless contempt, "Who is this Henry Coventry?" Randolph"s choking rage found vent in a letter to the king, taking pains to remind him that the governor of Ma.s.sachusetts had once been an officer in Cromwell"s army. As we read this and think with what ghoulish glee the writer would have betrayed Colonel Goffe into the hands of the headsman, had any clue been given him, we can quite understand why Hubbard and Mather had nothing to say about the mysterious stranger at Hadley.
Everything that Randolph could think of that would goad and irritate the king, he reported in full to London; his letters were specimens of that worst sort of lie that is based upon distorted half-truths; and his malicious pen but seldom lay idle.
While waiting for the effects of these reports to ripen, Randolph was busily intriguing with some of the leading men in Boston who were dissatisfied with the policy of the dominant party, and under his careful handling a party was soon brought into existence which was ready to counsel submission to the royal will. Such was the birth of Toryism in New England. The leader of this party was Joseph Dudley, son of the grim verse-maker who had come over as lieutenant to Winthrop. The younger Dudley was graduated at Harvard in 1665, and proceeded to study theology, but soon turned his attention entirely to politics. In 1673 he was a deputy from Roxbury in the General Court; in 1675 he took part in the storming of the Narragansett fort; in 1677 and the three following years he was one of the Federal Commissioners. In character and temper he differed greatly from his father. Like the proverbial minister"s son whose feet are swift toward folly, Joseph Dudley seems to have learned in stern bleak years of childhood to rebel against the Puritan theory of life. Much of the abuse that has been heaped upon him, as a renegade and traitor, is probably undeserved. It does not appear that he ever made any pretence of love for the Puritan commonwealth, and there were many like him who had as lief be ruled by king as by clergy. But it cannot be denied that his suppleness and sagacity went along with a moral nature that was weak and vulgar. Joseph Dudley was essentially a self-seeking politician and courtier, like his famous kinsman of the previous century, Robert, Earl of Leicester. His party in Ma.s.sachusetts was largely made up of men who had come to the colony for commercial reasons, and had little or no sympathy with the objects for which it was founded. Among them were Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Baptists, who were allowed no chance for public worship, as well as many others who, like Gallio, cared for none of these things. Their numbers, moreover, must have been large, for Boston had grown to be a town of 5000 inhabitants, the population of Ma.s.sachusetts was approaching 30,000, and, according to Hutchinson, scarcely one grown man in five was a church-member qualified to vote or hold office. Such a fact speaks volumes as to the change which was coming over the Puritan world. No wonder that the clergy had begun to preach about the weeds and tares that were overrunning Christ"s pleasant garden. No wonder that the spirit of revolt against the disfranchising policy of the theocracy was ripe. [Sidenote: Joseph Dudley]
It was in 1679, when this weakness of the body politic had been duly studied and reported by Randolph, and when all New England was groaning under the bereavements and burdens entailed by Philip"s war, that the Stuart government began its final series of a.s.saults upon Ma.s.sachusetts.
The claims of the eastern proprietors, the heirs of Mason and Gorges, furnished the occasion. Since 1643 the four Piscataqua towns--Hampton, Exeter, Dover, and Portsmouth--had remained under the jurisdiction of Ma.s.sachusetts. After the Restoration the Mason claim had been revived, and in 1677 was referred to the chief-justices North and Rainsford.
Their decision was that Mason"s claim had always been worthless as based on a grant in which the old Plymouth Company had exceeded its powers.
They also decided that Ma.s.sachusetts had no valid claim since the charter a.s.signed her a boundary just north of the Merrimack. This decision left the four towns subject to none but the king, who forthwith in 1679 proceeded to erect them into the royal province of New Hampshire, with president and council appointed by the crown, and an a.s.sembly chosen by the people, but endowed with little authority,--a tricksome counterfeit of popular government. Within three years an arrogant and thieving ruler, Edward Cranfield, had goaded New Hampshire to acts of insurrection. [Sidenote: Royal province of New Hampshire]
To the decisions of the chief-justices Ma.s.sachusetts must needs submit.
The Gorges claim led to more serious results. Under Cromwell"s rule in 1652--the same year in which she began coining money--Ma.s.sachusetts had extended her sway over Maine. In 1665 Colonel Nichols and his commissioners, acting upon the express instructions of Charles II., took it away from her. In 1668, after the commissioners had gone home, Ma.s.sachusetts coolly took possession again. In 1677 the chief-justices decided that the claim of the Gorges family, being based on a grant from James I., was valid. Then the young Ferdinando Gorges, grandson of the first proprietor, offered to sell the province to the king, who had now taken it into his head that he would like to bestow it upon the Duke of Monmouth, his favourite son by Lucy Walters. Before Charles had responded, Governor Leverett had struck a bargain with Gorges, who ceded to Ma.s.sachusetts all his rights over Maine for L1250 in hard cash. When the king heard of this transaction he was furious. He sent a letter to Boston, commanding the General Court to surrender the province again on repayment of this sum of L1250, and expressing his indignation that the people should thus dare to dispose of an important claim off-hand without consulting his wishes. In the same letter the colony was enjoined to put in force the royal orders of seventeen years before, concerning the oath of allegiance, the restriction of the suffrage, and the prohibition of the Episcopal form of worship. [Sidenote: The Gorges claim]
This peremptory message reached Boston about Christmas, 1679. Leverett, the st.u.r.dy Ironsides, had died six months before, and his place was filled by Simon Bradstreet, a man of moderate powers but great integrity, and held in peculiar reverence as the last survivor of those that had been chosen to office before leaving England by the leaders of the great Puritan exodus. Born in a Lincolnshire village in 1603, he was now seventy-six years old. He had taken his degree at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, had served as secretary to the Earl of Warwick, and in 1629 had been appointed member of the board of a.s.sistants for the colony about to be established on Ma.s.sachusetts bay. In this position he had remained with honour for half a century, while he had also served as Federal Commissioner and as agent for the colony in London. His wife, who died in 1672, was a woman of quaint learning and quainter verses, which her contemporaries admired beyond measure. One of her books was republished in London, with the t.i.tle: "The Tenth Muse, lately sprung up in America." John Norton once said that if Virgil could only have heard the seraphic poems of Anne Bradstreet, he would have thrown his heathen doggerel into the fire. She was sister of Joseph Dudley, and evidently inherited this rhyming talent, such as it was, from her father. Governor Bradstreet belonged to the moderate party who would have been glad to extend the franchise, but he did not go with his brother-in-law in subservience to the king. [Sidenote: Simon Bradstreet and his wife]
When the General Court a.s.sembled, in May, 1680, the full number of eighteen a.s.sistants appeared, for the first time in the history of the colony, and in accordance with an expressed wish of the king. They were ready to yield in trifles, but not in essentials. After wearisome discussion, the answer to the royal letter was decided on. It stated in vague and unsatisfactory terms that the royal orders of 1662 either had been carried out already or would be in good time, while to the demand for the surrender of Maine no reply whatever was made, save that "they were heartily sorry that any actings of theirs should be displeasing to his Majesty." After this, when Randolph wrote home that the king"s letters were of no more account in Ma.s.sachusetts than an old London Gazette, he can hardly be accused of stretching the truth. Randolph kept busily at work, and seems to have persuaded the Bishop of London that if the charter could be annulled, episcopacy might be established in Ma.s.sachusetts as in England. In February, 1682, a letter came from the king demanding submission and threatening legal proceedings against the charter. Dudley was then sent as agent to London, and with him was sent a Mr. Richards, of the extreme clerical party, to watch him. [Sidenote: Ma.s.sachusetts answers the king]
Meanwhile the king"s position at home had been changing. He had made up his mind to follow his father"s example and try the experiment of setting his people at defiance and governing without a parliament. This could not be done without a great supply of money. Louis XIV. had plenty of money, for there was no const.i.tution in France to prevent his squeezing what he wanted out of the pockets of an oppressed people.
France was thriving greatly now, for Colbert had introduced a comparatively free system of trade between the provinces and inaugurated an era of prosperity soon to be cut short by the expulsion of the Huguenots. Louis could get money enough for the asking, and would be delighted to foment civil disturbances in England, so as to tie the hands of the only power which at that moment could interfere with his seizing Alsace and Lorraine and invading Flanders. The pretty Louise de Keroualle d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth, with her innocent baby face and heart as cold as any reptile"s, was the French Delilah chosen to shear the locks of the British Samson. By such means and from such motives a secret treaty was made in February, 1681, by which Louis agreed to pay Charles 2,000,000 livres down, and 500,000 more in each of the next two years, on condition that he should summon no more parliaments within that time. This bargain for securing the means of overthrowing the laws and liberties of England was, on the part of Charles II., an act no less reprehensible than some of those for which his father had gone to the block. But Charles could now afford for a while to wreak his evil will.
He had already summoned a parliament for the 21st of March, to meet at Oxford within the precincts of the subservient university, and out of reach of the high-spirited freemen of London. He now forced a quarrel with the new parliament and dissolved it within a week. A joiner named Stephen College, who had spoken his mind too freely in the taverns at Oxford with regard to these proceedings, was drawn and quartered. The Whig leader Lord Shaftesbury was obliged to flee to Holland. In the absence of a parliament the only power of organized resistance to the king"s tyranny resided in the corporate governments of the chartered towns. The charter of London was accordingly attacked by a writ of _quo warranto_, and in June, 1683, the time-serving judges declared it confiscated. George Jeffreys, a low drunken fellow whom Charles had made Lord Chief Justice, went on a circuit through the country; and, as Roger North says, "made all the charters, like the walls of Jericho, fall down before him, and returned laden with surrenders, the spoils of towns."
At the same time a terrible blow was dealt at two of the greatest Whig families in England. Lord William Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, and Algernon Sidney, younger son of the Earl of Leicester, two of the purest patriots and ablest liberal leaders of the day, were tried on a false charge of treason and beheaded. [Sidenote: Secret treaty between Charles II. and Louis XIV] [Sidenote: Shameful proceedings in England]
By this quick succession of high-handed measures, the friends of law and liberty were for a moment disconcerted and paralyzed. In the frightful abas.e.m.e.nt of the courts of justice which these events so clearly showed, the freedom of Englishmen seemed threatened in its last stronghold. The doctrine of pa.s.sive obedience to monarchs was preached in the pulpits and inculcated by the university of Oxford, which ordered the works of John Milton to be publicly burned. Sir Robert Filmer wrote that "not only in human laws, but even in divine, a thing may by the king be commanded contrary to law, and yet obedience to such a command is necessary." Charles felt so strong that in 1684 he flatly refused to summon a parliament.
It was not long before the effects of all this were felt in New England.
The mission of Dudley and his colleague was fruitless. They returned to Boston, and Randolph, who had followed them to London, now followed them back, armed with a writ of _quo warranto_ which he was instructed not to serve until he should have given Ma.s.sachusetts one more chance to humble herself in the dust. Should she modify her const.i.tution to please a tyrant or see it trampled under foot? Recent events in England served for a solemn warning; for the moment the Tories were silenced; perhaps after all, the absolute rule of a king was hardly to be preferred to the sway of the Puritan clergy; the day when the House of Commons sat still and wept seemed to have returned. A great town-meeting was held in the Old South Meeting-House, and the moderator requested all who were for surrendering the charter to hold up their hands. Not a hand was lifted, and out from the throng a solitary voice exclaimed, with deep-drawn breath, "The Lord be praised!" Then arose Increase Mather, president of Harvard College, and reminded them how their fathers did win this charter, and should they deliver it up unto the spoiler who demanded it "even as Ahab required Naboth"s vineyard, Oh! their children would be bound to curse them." Such was the att.i.tude of Ma.s.sachusetts, and when it was known in London, the blow was struck. For technical reasons Randolph"s writ was not served; but on the 21st of June a decree in chancery annulled the charter of Ma.s.sachusetts. [Sidenote: Ma.s.sachusetts refuses to surrender her charter] [Sidenote: It is annulled by degree of chancery, June 21, 1684]
To appreciate the force of this blow we must pause for a moment and consider what it involved. The right to the soil of North America had been hitherto regarded in England, on the strength of the discoveries of the Cabots, as an appurtenance to the crown of Henry VII.,--as something which descended from father to son like the palace at Hampton Court or the castle at Windsor, but which the sovereign might alienate by his voluntary act just as he might sell or give away a piece of his royal domain in England. Over this vast territory it was doubtful how far Parliament was ent.i.tled to exercise authority, and the rights of Englishmen settled there had theoretically no security save in the provisions of the various charters by which the crown had delegated its authority to individual proprietors or to private companies. It was thus on the charter granted by Charles I. to the Company of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay that not only the cherished political and ecclesiastical inst.i.tutions of the colony, but even the t.i.tles of individuals to their lands and houses, were supposed to be founded. By the abrogation of the charter, all rights and immunities that had been based upon it were at once swept away, and every rood of the soil of Ma.s.sachusetts became the personal property of the Stuart king, who might, if he should possess the will and the power, turn out all the present occupants or otherwise deal with them as trespa.s.sers. Such at least was the theory of Charles II., and to show that he meant to wreak his vengeance with no gentle hand, he appointed as his viceroy the brutal Percy Kirke,--a man who would have no scruples about hanging a few citizens without trial, should occasion require it. [Sidenote: Effect of annulling the charter]
But in February, 1685, just as Charles seemed to be getting everything arranged to his mind, a stroke of apoplexy carried him off the scene, and his brother ascended the throne. Monmouth"s rebellion, and the horrible cruelties that followed, kept Colonel Kirke busy in England through the summer, and left the new king scant leisure to think about America. Late in the autumn, having made up his mind that he could not spare such an exemplary knave as Kirke, James II. sent over Sir Edmund Andros. In the mean time the government of Ma.s.sachusetts had been administered by Dudley, who showed himself willing to profit by the misfortunes of his country. Andros had long been one of James"s favourites. He was the dull and dogged English officer such as one often meets, honest enough and faithful to his master, neither cruel nor rapacious, but coa.r.s.e in fibre and wanting in tact. Some years before, when governor of New York, he had a territorial dispute with Connecticut, and now cherished a grudge against the people of New England, so that, from James"s point of view, he was well fitted to be their governor. James wished to abolish all the local governments in America, and unite them, as far as possible, under a single administration. With Plymouth there could be no trouble; she had never had a charter, but had existed on sufferance from the outset. In 1687 the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut were rescinded, but the decrees were not executed in due form. In October of that year Andros went to Hartford, to seize the Connecticut charter but it was not surrendered. While Sir Edmund was bandying threats with stout Robert Treat, the queller of Indians and now governor of Connecticut, in the course of their evening conference the candles were suddenly blown out, and when after some sc.r.a.ping of tinder they were lighted again the doc.u.ment was nowhere to be found, for Captain Wadsworth had carried it away and hidden it in the hollow trunk of a mighty oak tree.
Nevertheless for the moment the colony was obliged to submit to the tyrant. Next day the secretary John Allyn wrote "Finis" on the colonial records and shut up the book. Within another twelvemonth New York and New Jersey were added to the viceroyalty of Andros; so that all the northern colonies from the forests of Maine to the Delaware river were thus brought under the arbitrary rule of one man, who was responsible to no one but the king for whatever he might take it into his head to do.
[Sidenote: Sir Edmund Andros] [Sidenote: The Charter Oak]
The vexatious character of the new government was most strongly felt at Boston where Andros had his headquarters. Measures were at once taken for the erection of an Episcopal church, and meantime the royal order was that one of the princ.i.p.al meeting-houses should be seized for the use of the Church of England. This was an ominous beginning. In the eyes of the people it was much more than a mere question of disturbing Puritan prejudices. They had before them the experience of Scotland during the past ten years, the savage times of "Old Mortality," the times which had seen the tyrannical prelate, on the lonely moor, begging in vain for his life, the times of Drumclog and Bothwell Brigg, of Claverhouse and his flinty-hearted troopers, of helpless women tied to stakes on the Solway sh.o.r.e and drowned by inches in the rising tide.
What had happened in one part of the world might happen in another, for the Stuart policy was the same. It aimed not at securing toleration but at a.s.serting unchecked supremacy. Its demand for an inch was the prelude to its seizing an ell, and so our forefathers understood it. Sir Edmund"s formal demand for the Old South Meeting-House was flatly refused, but on Good Friday, 1687, the s.e.xton was frightened into opening it, and thenceforward Episcopal services were held there alternately with the regular services until the overthrow of Andros. The pastor, Samuel Willard, was son of the gallant veteran who had rescued the beleaguered people of Brookfield in King Philip"s war. Amusing pa.s.sages occurred between him and Sir Edmund, who relished the pleasantry of keeping minister and congregation waiting an hour or two in the street on Sundays before yielding to them the use of their meeting-house. More kindly memories of the unpopular governor are a.s.sociated with the building of the first King"s Chapel on the spot where its venerable successor now stands. The church was not finished until after Sir Edmund had taken his departure, but Lady Andros, who died in February, 1688, lies in the burying-ground hard by. Her gentle manners had won all hearts. For the moment, we are told, one touch of nature made enemies kin, and as Sir Edmund walked to the townhouse "many a head was bared to the bereaved husband that before had remained stubbornly covered to the exalted governor." [38] [Sidenote: Episcopal services in Boston] [Sidenote: Founding of the King"s Chapel, 1689]
The despotic rule of Andros was felt in more serious ways than in the seizing upon a meetinghouse. Arbitrary taxes were imposed, encroachments were made upon common lands as in older manorial times, and the writ of _habeas corpus_ was suspended. Dudley was appointed censor of the press, and nothing was allowed to be printed without his permission. All the public records of the late New England governments were ordered to be brought to Boston, whither it thus became necessary to make a tedious journey in order to consult them. All deeds and wills were required to be registered in Boston, and excessive fees were charged for the registry. It was proclaimed that all private t.i.tles to land were to be ransacked, and that whoever wished to have his t.i.tle confirmed must pay a heavy quit-rent, which under the circ.u.mstances amounted to blackmail.
The General Court was abolished. The power of taxation was taken from the town-meetings and lodged with the governor. Against this crowning iniquity the town of Ipswich, led by its st.u.r.dy pastor, John Wise, made protest. In response Mr. Wise was thrown into prison, fined 50, and suspended from the ministry. A notable and powerful character was this John Wise. One of the broadest thinkers and most lucid writers of his time, he seems like a forerunner of the liberal Unitarian divines of the nineteenth century. His "Vindication of the Government of the New England Churches," published in 1717, was a masterly exposition of the principles of civil government, and became "a text book of liberty for our Revolutionary fathers, containing some of the notable expressions that are used in the Declaration of Independence." [Sidenote: Tyranny]
[Sidenote: John Wise of Ipswich]
It was on the trial of Mr. Wise in October, 1687, that Dudley openly declared that the people of New England had now no further privileges left them than not to be sold for slaves. Such a state of things in the valley of the Euphrates would not have attracted comment; the peasantry of central Europe would have endured it until better instructed; but in an English community it could not last long. If James II. had remained upon the throne, New England would surely have soon risen in rebellion against Andros. But the mother country had by this time come to repent the fresh lease of life which she had granted to the Stuart dynasty after Cromwell"s death. Tired of the disgraceful subservience of her Court to the schemes of Louis XIV., tired of fict.i.tious plots and judicial murders, tired of b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sizes and declarations of indulgence and all the strange devices of Stuart tyranny, England endured the arrogance of James but three years, and then drove him across the Channel, to get such consolation as he might from his French paymaster and patron. On the 4th of April, 1689, the youthful John Winslow brought to Boston the news of the landing of the Prince of Orange in England.
For the s.p.a.ce of two weeks there was quiet and earnest deliberation among the citizens, as the success of the Prince"s enterprise was not yet regarded as a.s.sured. But all at once, on the morning of the 18th, the drums beat to arms, the signal-fire was lighted on Beacon Hill, a meeting was held at the Town-House, militia began to pour in from the country, and Andros, summoned to surrender, was fain to beseech Mr.
Willard and the other ministers to intercede for him. But the ministers refused. Next day the Castle was surrendered, the Rose frigate riding in the harbour was seized and dismantled, and Andros was arrested as he was trying to effect his escape disguised in woman"s clothes. Dudley and the other agents of tyranny were also imprisoned, and thus the revolution was accomplished. It marks the importance which the New England colonies were beginning to attain, that, before the Prince of Orange had fully secured the throne, he issued a letter instructing the people of Boston to preserve decorum and acquiesce yet a little longer in the government of Andros, until more satisfactory arrangements could be made. But Increase Mather, who was then in London on a mission in behalf of New England, judiciously prevented this letter of instructions from being sent. The zeal of the people outstripped the cautious policy of the new sovereign, and provisional governments, in accordance with the old charters, were at once set up in the colonies lately ruled by Andros.
Bradstreet now in his eighty-seventh year was reinstated as governor of Ma.s.sachusetts. Five weeks after this revolution in Boston the order to proclaim King William and Queen Mary was received, amid such rejoicings as had never before been seen in that quiet town, for it was believed that self-government would now be guaranteed to New England. [Sidenote: Fall of James II.] [Sidenote: Insurrection in Boston, and overthrow of Andros, April 18, 1689]
This hope was at least so far realized that from the most formidable dangers which had threatened it, New England was henceforth secured.
The struggle with the Stuarts was ended, and by this second revolution within half a century the crown had received a check from which it never recovered. There were troubles yet in store for England, but no more such outrages as the judicial murders of Russell and Sidney. New England had still a stern ordeal to go through, but never again was she to be so trodden down and insulted as in the days of Andros. The efforts of George III. to rule Englishmen despotically were weak as compared with those of the Stuarts. In his time England had waxed strong enough to curb the tyrant, America had waxed strong enough to defy and disown him.
After 1689 the Puritan no longer felt that his religion was in danger, and there was a reasonable prospect that charters solemnly granted him would be held sacred. William III. was a sovereign of modern type, from whom freedom of thought and worship had nothing to fear. In his theology he agreed, as a Dutch Calvinist, more nearly with the Puritans than with the Church of England. At the same time he had no great liking for so much independence of thought and action as New England had exhibited. In the negotiations which now definitely settled the affairs of this part of the world, the intractable behaviour of Ma.s.sachusetts was borne in mind and contrasted with the somewhat less irritating att.i.tude of the smaller colonies. It happened that the decree which annulled the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut had not yet been formally enrolled. It was accordingly treated as void, and the old charters were allowed to remain in force. They were so liberal that no change in them was needed at the time of the Revolution, so that Connecticut was governed under its old charter until 1818, and Rhode Island until 1842.
[Sidenote: Effects of the Revolution of 1689]
There was at this time a disposition on the part of the British government to unite all the northern colonies under a single administration. The French in Canada were fast becoming rivals to be feared; and the wonderful explorations of La Salle, bringing the St.
Lawrence into political connection with the Mississippi, had at length foreshadowed a New France in the rear of all the English colonies, aiming at the control of the centre of the continent and eager to confine the English to the sea-board. Already the relations of position which led to the great Seven Years" War were beginning to shape themselves; and the conflict between France and England actually broke out in 1689, as soon as Louis XIV."s hired servant, James II., was superseded by William III. as king of England and head of a Protestant league. [Sidenote: Need for union among all the northern colonies]
In view of this new state of affairs, it was thought desirable to unite the northern English colonies under one head, so far as possible, in order to secure unity of military action. But natural prejudices had to be considered. The policy of James II. had aroused such bitter feeling in America that William must needs move with caution. Accordingly he did not seek to unite New York with New England, and he did not think it worth while to carry out the attack which James had only begun upon Connecticut and Rhode Island. As for New Hampshire, he seems to have been restrained by what in the language of modern politics would be called "pressure," brought to bear by certain local interests. [39]
But in the case of the little colony founded by the Pilgrims of the Mayflower there was no obstacle. She was now annexed to Ma.s.sachusetts, which also received not only Maine but even Acadia, just won from the French; so that, save for the short break at Portsmouth, the coast of Ma.s.sachusetts now reached all the way from Martha"s Vineyard to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. [Sidenote: Plymouth, Maine, and Acadia, annexed to Ma.s.sachusetts]
But along with this great territorial extension there went some curtailment of the political privileges of the colony. By the new charter of 1692 the right of the people to be governed by a legislature of their own choosing was expressly confirmed. The exclusive right of this legislature to impose taxes was also confirmed. But henceforth no qualification of church-membership, but only a property qualification, was to be required of voters; the governor was to be appointed by the crown instead of being elected by the people; and all laws pa.s.sed by the legislature were to be sent to England for royal approval. These features of the new charter,--the extension, or if I may so call it, the _secularization_ of the franchise, the appointment of the governor by the crown, and the power of veto which the crown expressly reserved,--were grave restrictions upon the independence which Ma.s.sachusetts had hitherto enjoyed. Henceforth her position was to be like that of the other colonies with royal governors. But her history did not thereby lose its interest or significance, though it became, like the history of most of the colonies, a dismal record of irrepressible bickerings between the governor appointed by the crown and the legislature elected by the people. In the period that began in 1692 and ended in 1776, the movements of Ma.s.sachusetts, while restricted and hampered, were at the same time forced into a wider orbit. She was brought into political sympathy with Virginia. While two generations of men were pa.s.sing across the scene, the political problems of Ma.s.sachusetts were a.s.similated to those of Virginia. In spite of all the other differences, great as they were, there was a likeness in the struggles between the popular legislature and the royal governor which subordinated them all. It was this similarity of experience, during the eighteenth century, that brought these two foremost colonies into cordial alliance during the struggle against George III., and thus made it possible to cement all the colonies together in the mighty nation whose very name is fraught with so high and earnest a lesson to mankind,--the UNITED STATES! [Sidenote: Ma.s.sachusetts becomes a royal province]
For such a far-reaching result, the temporary humiliation of Ma.s.sachusetts was a small price to pay. But it was not until long after the accession of William III. that things could be seen in these grand outlines. With his coronation began the struggle of seventy years between France and England, far grander than the struggle between Rome and Carthage, two thousand years earlier, for primacy in the world, for the prerogative of determining the future career of mankind. That warfare, so fraught with meaning, was waged as much upon American as upon European ground; and while it continued, it was plainly for the interest of the British government to pursue a conciliatory policy toward its American colonies, for without their wholehearted a.s.sistance it could have no hope of success. As soon as the struggle was ended, and the French power in the colonial world finally overthrown, the perpetual quarrels between the popular legislatures and the royal governors led immediately to the Stamp Act and the other measures of the British government that brought about the American revolution. People sometimes argue about that revolution as if it had no past behind it and was simply the result of a discussion over abstract principles. [Sidenote: Seeds of the American Revolution already sown]
We can now see that while the dispute involved an abstract principle of fundamental importance to mankind, it was at the same time for Americans ill.u.s.trated by memories sufficiently concrete and real. James Otis in his prime was no further distant from the tyranny of Andros than middle-aged men of to-day are distant from the Missouri Compromise. The sons of men cast into jail along with John Wise may have stood silent in the moonlight on Griffin"s Wharf and looked on while the contents of the tea-chests were hurled into Boston harbour. In the events we have here pa.s.sed in review, it may be seen, so plainly that he who runs may read, how the spirit of 1776 was foreshadowed in 1689.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.
An interesting account of the Barons" War and the meeting of the first House of Commons is given in Prothero"s _Simon de Montfort_, London, 1877. For Wyclif and the Lollards, see Milman"s _Latin Christianity_, vol. vii.
The ecclesiastical history of the Tudor period may best be studied in the works of John Strype, to wit, _Historical Memorials_, 6 vols.; _Annals of the Reformation_, 7 vols.; _Lives of Cranmer, Parker, Whitgift, etc._, Oxford, 1812-28. See also _Burnet"s History of the Reformation of the Church of England_, 3 vols., London, 1679-1715; Neal"s _History of the Puritans_, London, 1793; Tulloch, _Leaders of the Reformation_, Boston, 1859. A vast ma.s.s of interesting information is to be found in _The Zurich Letters, comprising the Correspondence of Several English Bishops, and Others, with some of the Helvetian Reformers_, published by the Parker Society, 4 vols., Cambridge, Eng., 1845-46. Hooker"s _Ecclesiastical Polity_ was published in London, 1594; a new edition, containing two additional books, the first complete edition, was published in 1622.
For the general history of England in the seventeenth century, there are two modern works which stand far above all others,--Gardiner"s _History of England_, 10 vols., London, 1883-84; and Ma.s.son"s _Life of Milton, narrated in connection with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his Time_, 6 vols., Cambridge, Eng., 1859-80. These are books of truly colossal erudition, and written in a spirit of judicial fairness. Mr. Gardiner"s ten volumes cover the forty years from the accession of James I. to the beginning of the Civil War, 1603-1643. Mr.
Gardiner has lately published the first two volumes of his history of the Civil War, and it is to be hoped that he will not stop until he reaches the accession of William and Mary. Indeed, such books as his ought never to stop. My friend and colleague, Prof. Hosmer, tells me that Mr. Gardiner is a lineal descendant of Cromwell and Ireton. His little book, _The Puritan Revolution_, in the "Epochs of History"
series, is extremely useful, and along with it one should read Airy"s _The English Restoration and Louis XIV_., in the same series, New York, 1889. The best biography of Cromwell is by Mr. Allanson Picton, London, 1882; see also Frederic Harrison"s _Cromwell_, London, 1888, an excellent little book. Hosmer"s _Young Sir Henry Vane_, Boston, 1888, should be read in the same connection; and one should not forget Carlyle"s _Cromwell_. See also Tulloch, _English Puritanism and its Leaders_, 1861, and _Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth Century_, 1872; Skeats, _History of the Free Churches of England_, London, 1868; Mountfield, _The Church and Puritans_, London, 1881. Dexter"s _Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years_, New York, 1880, is a work of monumental importance.
On the history of New England the best general works are Palfrey, _History of New England_, 4 vols., Boston, 1858-75; and Doyle, _The English in America--The Puritan Colonies_, 2 vols., London, 1887. In point of scholarship Dr. Palfrey"s work is of the highest order, and it is written in an interesting style. Its only shortcoming is that it deals somewhat too leniently with the faults of the Puritan theocracy, and looks at things too exclusively from a Ma.s.sachusetts point of view.
It is one of the best histories yet written in America. Mr. Doyle"s work is admirably fair and impartial, and is based throughout upon a careful study of original doc.u.ments. The author is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and has apparently made American history his specialty.
His work on the Puritan colonies is one of a series which when completed will cover the whole story of English colonization in America. I have looked in vain in his pages for any remark or allusion indicating that he has ever visited America, and am therefore inclined to think that he has not done so. He now and then makes a slight error such as would not be likely to be made by a native of New England, but this is very seldom. The accuracy and thoroughness of its research, its judicial temper, and its philosophical spirit make Mr. Doyle"s book in some respects the best that has been written about New England.
Among original authorities we may begin by citing John Smith"s _Description of New England_, 1616, and _New England"s Trial_, 1622, contained in Arber"s new edition of Smith"s works, London, 1884.
Bradford"s narrative of the founding of Plymouth was for a long time supposed to be lost. Nathaniel Morton"s _New England"s Memorial_, published in 1669, was little more than an abridgment of it. After two centuries Bradford"s ma.n.u.script was discovered, and an excellent edition by Mr. Charles Deane was published in the _Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Collections_, 4th series, vol. iii., 1856. Edward Winslow"s _Journal of the Proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth_, 1622, and _Good News from New England_, 1624, are contained, with other valuable materials, in Young"s _Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers_, Boston, 1844. See also Shurtleff and Pulsifer, _Records of Plymouth_, 12 vols., ending with the annexation of the colony to Ma.s.sachusetts in 1692; Prince"s _Chronological History of New England_, ed. Drake, 1852; and in this connection Hunter"s _Founders of New Plymouth_, London, 1854; Steele"s _Life of Brewster_, Philadelphia, 1857; Goodwin"s _Pilgrim Republic_, Boston, 1887; Bacon"s _Genesis of the New England Churches_, New York, 1874; Baylies"s _Historical Memoir_, 1830; Thacher"s _History of the Town of Plymouth_, 1832.
Sir Ferdinando Gorges wrote a _Briefe Narration of the Originall Undertakings of the advancement of plantations into the parts of America, especially showing the beginning, progress, and continuance of that of New England_, London, 1658, contained in his grandson"s collection ent.i.tled _America Painted to the Life_. Thomas Morton, of Merrymount, gave his own view of the situation in his _New English Canaan_, which has been edited for the Prince Society, with great learning, by C.F. Adams. Samuel Maverick also had his say in a valuable pamphlet ent.i.tled _A Description of New England_, which has only come to light since 1875 and has been edited by Mr. Deane. Maverick is, of course, hostile to the Puritans. See also Lechford"s _Plain Dealing in New England_, ed. J.H. Trumbull, 1867.
The earliest history of Ma.s.sachusetts is by Winthrop himself, a work of priceless value. In 1790, nearly a century and a half after the author"s death, it was published at Hartford. The best edition is that of 1853.
In 1869 a valuable life of Winthrop was published by his descendant Robert Winthrop. Hubbard"s _History of New England_ (_Ma.s.s. Hist.
Coll._, 2d series, vols. v., vi.) is drawn largely from Winthrop and from Nathaniel Morton. There is much that is suggestive in William Wood"s _New England"s Prospect_, 1634, and Edward Johnson"s _Wonder-working Providence of Zion"s Saviour in New England_, 1654; the latter has been ably edited by W.F. Poole, Andover, 1867. The records of the Ma.s.sachusetts government, from its founding in 1629 down to the overthrow of the charter in 1684, were edited by Dr. Shurtleff in 6 vols. quarto, 1853-54; and among the doc.u.ments in the British Record Office, published since 1855, three volumes--_Calendar of State Papers_, _Colonial America_, vol. i., 1574-1660; vol. v., 1661-1668; vol. vii., 1669--are especially useful. Of the later authorities the best is Hutchinson"s _History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay_, the first volume of which, coming down to 1689, was published in Boston in 1764. The second volume, continuing the narrative to 1749, was published in 1767. The third volume, coming down to 1774, was found among the ill.u.s.trious author"s MSS. after his death, and was published in London in 1828. Hutchinson had access to many valuable doc.u.ments since lost, and his sound judgment and critical ac.u.men deserve the highest praise. In 1769 he published a volume of _Original Papers_, ill.u.s.trating the period covered by the first volume of his history. Many priceless doc.u.ments perished in the shameful sacking of his house by the Boston rioters, Aug. 26, 1765. The second volume of Hutchinson"s _History_ was continued to 1764 by G.R.
Minot, 2 vols., 1798, and to 1820 by Alden Bradford, 3 vols., 1822-29.
Of recent works, the best is Barry"s _History of Ma.s.sachusetts_, 3 vols., 1855-57. Many original authorities are collected in Young"s _Chronicles of Ma.s.sachusetts_, Boston, 1846. Cotton Mather"s _Magnolia Christi Americana_, London, 1702 (reprinted in 1820 and 1853), though crude and uncritical, is full of interest.
Many of the early Ma.s.sachusetts doc.u.ments relate to Maine. Of later books, especial mention should be made of Folsom"s _History of Saco and Biddeford_, Saco, 1830; Willis"s _History of Portland_, 2 vols., 1831-33 (2d ed. 1865); _Memorial Volume of the Popham Celebration_, Portland, 1862; Chamberlain"s _Maine, Her Place in History_, Augusta, 1877. On New Hampshire the best general work is Belknap"s _History of New Hampshire_, 3 vols., Phila., 1784-92; the appendix contains many original doc.u.ments, and others are to be found in the _New Hampshire Historical Collections_, 8 vols., 1824-66.
The _Connecticut Colonial Records_ are edited by Dr. J.H. Trumbull, 12 vols., 1850-82. The _Connecticut Historical Society"s Collections_, 1860-70, are of much value. The best general work is Trumbull"s _History of Connecticut_, 2 vols., Hartford, 1797. See also Stiles"s _Ancient Windsor_, 2 vols., 1859-63; Cothren"s _Ancient Woodbury_, 3 vols., 1854-79. Of the Pequot War we have accounts by three of the princ.i.p.al actors. Mason"s _History of the Pequod War_ is in the _Ma.s.s. Hist.
Coll._, 2d series, vol. viii.; Underhill"s _News from America_ is in the 3d series, vol. vi.; and Lyon Gardiner"s narrative is in the 3d series, vol. iii. In the same volume with Underhill is contained _A True Relation of the late Battle fought in New England between the English and the Pequod Savages_, by Philip Vincent, London, 1638. The _New Haven Colony Records_ are edited by C.J. Hoadly, 2 vols., Hartford, 1857-58.
See also the _New Haven Historical Society"s Papers_, 3 vols., 1865-80; Lambert"s _History of New Haven_, 1838; At.w.a.ter"s _History of New Haven_, 1881; Levermore"s _Republic of New Haven_, Baltimore, 1886; Johnston"s _Connecticut_, Boston, 1887. The best account of the Blue Laws is by J.H. Trumbull, _The True Blue Laws of Connecticut and New Haven, and the False Blue Laws invented by the Rev. Samuel Peters_, etc., Hartford, 1876. See also Hinman"s _Blue Laws of New Haven Colony_, Hartford, 1838; Barber"s _History and Antiquities of New Haven_, 1831; Peters"s _History of Connecticut_, London, 1781. The story of the regicides is set forth in Stiles"s _History of the Three Judges_ [the third being Colonel Dixwell], Hartford, 1794; see also the _Mather Papers_ in _Ma.s.s. Hist. Coll._, 4th series, vol. viii.
_The Rhode Island Colonial Records_ are edited by J.R. Bartlett, 7 vols., 1856-62. One of the best state histories ever written is that of S.G. Arnold, _History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations_, 2 vols., New York, 1859-60. Many valuable doc.u.ments are reprinted in the _Rhode Island Historical Society"s Collections_. The _History of New England, with particular reference to the denomination called Baptists_, by Rev. Isaac Backus, 3 vols., 1777-96, has much that is valuable relating to Rhode Island. The series of _Rhode Island Historical Tracts_, issued since 1878 by Mr. S.S. Rider, is of great merit. Biographies of Roger Williams have been written by J.D. Knowles, 1834; by William Gammell, 1845; and by Romeo Elton, 1852. Williams"s works have been republished by the Narragansett Club in 6 vols., 1866.
The first volume contains the valuable _Key to the Indian Languages of America_, edited by Dr. Trumbull. Williams"s views of religious liberty are set forth in his _Bloudy Tenent of Persecution_, London, 1644; to which John Cotton replied in _The Bloudy Tenent washed and made White in the Blood of the Lamb_, London, 1647; Williams"s rejoinder was ent.i.tled _The Bloudy Tenent made yet more Bloudy through Mr. Cotton"s attempt to Wash it White_, London, 1652. The controversy was conducted on both sides with a candour and courtesy rare in that age. The t.i.tles of Williams"s other princ.i.p.al works, _George Fox digged out of his Burrowes_, Boston, 1676; _Hireling Ministry none of Christ"s_, London, 1652; and _Christenings make not Christians_, 1643; sufficiently indicate their character. The last-named tract was discovered in the British Museum by Dr. Dexter and edited by him in Rider"s _Tracts_, No. xiv., 1881. The treatment of Roger Williams by the government of Ma.s.sachusetts is thoroughly discussed in Dexter"s _As to Roger Williams_, Boston, 1876. See also G.E. Ellis on "The Treatment of Intruders and Dissentients by the Founders of Ma.s.sachusetts," in _Lowell Lectures_, Boston, 1869.