But there is reason to think otherwise. The Ma.s.sachusetts leaders took the ground that if they yielded any part they must eventually yield all, and they wanted no interference from outside in their government. Having ruled themselves for thirty years as they thought best, they were not disposed to admit that the King had any rights in the colony; and they believed that by steady resistance or by dilatory practices they could stave off intervention and that, with the danger once removed, the colony would be allowed to continue in its own course. In a measure they were justified in their belief. The King recalled the commissioners, and, though he wrote a letter declaring that Ma.s.sachusetts had shown a great want of duty and respect for the royal authority, he went no further than to command the colony to send agents to England to answer there the questions that had not been settled during the stay of the commissioners at Boston. But the colony did not take this command seriously and sent no agents. Nicolls, always temperate in speech, wrote in 1666: "The grandees of Boston are too proud to be dealt with, saying that His Majesty is well satisfied with their loyalty."
The "grandees" were playing a shrewd but none too wise a game. Affairs in England were not favorable to the pursuit of a rigorous policy at this time. The Dutch war, the fire and epidemic in London, and the consequent suspension of all outside activities, had thrown governmental business into disorder and confusion. Clarendon, whose influence was waning, was soon to lose his post as Chancellor. The negotiations which ended in the treaty of Breda, and the threatening policy of Louis XIV, now beginning to take a form ominous to the Protestant states of Europe, distracted men"s minds at home, and the Ma.s.sachusetts problem was for the moment lost sight of in the presence of the larger issues. The colony returned to its former position of independence and soon rea.s.serted its former authority over New Hampshire and Maine. To all appearances the failure of the royal commissioners was complete, but appearances were deceptive. The issue lay not merely between a Stuart King and a colony seeking to preserve its liberties; it was part of the larger and more fundamental issue of the place of a colony in England"s newly developed policy of colonial subordination and control. Neither was Ma.s.sachusetts a persecuted democracy. No modern democratic state would ever vest such powers in the hands of its magistrates and clergy, nor would any modern people accept such oppressive and unjust legislation as characterized these early New England communities. In any case, the contemptuous att.i.tude of Ma.s.sachusetts and her disregard of the royal commands were not forgotten; and when, a few years later, the authorities in England took up in earnest the enforcement of the new colonial policy as defined by acts of Parliament and royal orders and proclamations, the colony of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay was the first to feel the weight of the royal displeasure.
CHAPTER VIII
WARS WITH THE INDIANS
The period from 1660 to 1675, a time of readjustment in the affairs of the New England colonies, was characterized by widespread excitement and deep concern on the part of the colonies everywhere. Scarcely a section of the territory from Maine to the frontier of New York and the towns of Long Island but felt the strain of impending change in its political status. The winning of the charters and the capture of New Amsterdam were momentous events in the lives of the colonists of Rhode Island and Connecticut; while the agitation for the annexation of New Haven and the acrimonious debate that accompanied it must have stirred profoundly the towns of that colony and have led to local controversies, rivalries, and contentions that kept the inhabitants in a continual state of perturbation. On Long Island before 1664, the uncertainty as to jurisdiction, due to grave doubts as to the meaning of Connecticut"s charter, aroused the towns from Easthampton and Southold on the east to Flushing and Gravesend on the west, and divided the people into discordant and clashing groups. Captain John Scott, already mentioned, an adventurer and soldier of fortune who at one time or another seems to have made trouble in nearly every part of the British world, appeared at this time in Long Island and, denying Connecticut"s t.i.tle to the territory, proclaimed the King. In January, 1664, he established a government at Setauket, with himself as president. This event set the towns in an uproar; Captain Young from Southold, upholding Connecticut"s claim, came "with a trumpet" to Hempstead; New Haven men crossed Long Island Sound to support Scott"s cause; and at last Connecticut herself sent over officers to seize the insurgents. Though Scott said he would "sacrifice his heart"s blood upon the ground" before he would yield, he was taken and carried in chains to Hartford.
Both Plymouth and Ma.s.sachusetts sent letters protesting against the treatment of Scott, and the heat engendered among the members of the New England Confederation was intensified by the controversy over New Haven and the "uncomfortable debates" regarding the t.i.tle to the Narragansett territory. Ma.s.sachusetts wrote to Connecticut in 1662, "We cannot a little wonder at your proceeding so suddenly to extend your authority to the trouble of your friends and confederates"; to which Connecticut replied, hoping that Ma.s.sachusetts would stop laying further temptations before "our subjects at Mistack of disobedience to this government." The matter was debated for many years, and it was not until 1672 that Ma.s.sachusetts recognized Connecticut"s t.i.tle under the charter and yielded, not because it thought the claim just but because "it was judged by us more dangerous to the common cause of New England to oppose than by our forbearance and yielding to endeavour to prevent a mischief to us both."
In Rhode Island conditions were equally unsettled, for the inhabitants of the border towns did not know certainly in what colony they were situated or what authority to recognize; and though these doubts affected but little the daily life of the farmer, they did affect the t.i.tle to his lands and the payment of his taxes, and threw suspicion upon all legal processes and transactions. The situation was even more disturbed in the regions north of Ma.s.sachusetts, where the status of Maine and New Hampshire was undecided and where the coming of the royal commissioners only served to throw the inhabitants into a new ferment.
The claims of Mason and Gorges were revived by their descendants, and the King peremptorily ordered Ma.s.sachusetts to surrender the provinces.
Agents of Gorges appeared in the territory and demanded an acknowledgment of their authority; the commissioners themselves attempted to organize a government and to exercise jurisdiction there in the King"s name; but in 1668 Ma.s.sachusetts, denying all other pretensions, adopted a resolution a.s.serting her full right of control, and, sending commissioners with a military escort to York, resumed jurisdiction of the province. The inhabitants did not know what to do.
Some upheld the Gorges agents and the commissioners; others adhered to Ma.s.sachusetts. Even in Ma.s.sachusetts itself there were grave differences of opinion, for the younger generation did not always follow the old magistrates, and the people of Boston were developing views both of government and of the proper relations toward England that were at variance with those of the more conservative country towns and districts.
The larger disputes between the colonies were frequently accompanied with lesser disputes between the towns over their boundaries; and both at this time and for years afterwards there was scarcely an important settlement in New England that did not have some trouble with its neighbor. In 1666 Stamford and Greenwich came to blows over their dividing line, and in 1672 men from New London and Lyme attempted to mow the same piece of meadow and had a pitched battle with clubs and scythes. Not many years later the inhabitants of Windsor and Enfield "were so fiercely engag"d" over a disputed strip of land, reported an eye-witness, that a hundred men met to decide this controversy by force, "a resolute combat" ensuing between them "in which many blows were given to the exasperating each party, so that the lives and limbs of his Majesties subjects were endangered thereby."
Though clubs and scythes and fists are dangerous weapons enough, the only real fighting in which the colonists engaged was with the Indians and with weapons consisting of pikes and muskets. Indian attacks were an ever-present danger, for the stretches of unoccupied land between the colonies were the hunting-grounds of the Narragansetts of eastern Connecticut and western Rhode Island, the Pequots of Connecticut, the Wampanoags of Plymouth and its neighborhood, the Pennacooks of New Hampshire, and the Abenaki tribes of Maine. Plague and starvation had so far weakened the coast Indians before the arrival of the first colonists that the new settlements had been but little disturbed; but, unfortunately, as the first comers pushed into the interior, founding new plantations, felling trees, and clearing the soil, and the trappers and traders invaded the Indian hunting-grounds, carrying with them firearms and liquor, the Indian menace became serious.
To meet the Indian peril, all the colonies made provision for a supply of arms and for the drilling of the citizen body in militia companies or train-bands. But in equipment, discipline, and morale the fighting force of New England was very imperfect. The troops had no uniforms; there was a very inadequate commissariat; and alarums, whether by beacon, drum-beat, or discharge of guns, were slow and unreliable. Weapons were crude, and the method of handling them was exceedingly awkward and c.u.mbersome. The pike was early abandoned and the matchlock soon gave way to the flintlock--both heavy and unwieldy instruments of war--and carbines and pistols were also used. Cavalry or mounted infantry, though expensive because of horse and outfit, were introduced whenever possible. In 1675, Plymouth had fourteen companies of infantry and cavalry; Ma.s.sachusetts had six regiments, including the Ancient and Honorable Artillery; and Maine and New Hampshire had one each.
Connecticut had four train-bands in 1662 and nine in 1668, a troop of dragoneers, and a troop of horse, but no regiments until the next century. For coast defense there were forts, very inadequately supplied with ordnance, of which that on Castle Island in Boston harbor was the most conspicuous, and, for the frontier, there were garrison-houses and stockades.
Though Ma.s.sachusetts had twice put herself in readiness to repel attempts at coercion from England, and though both Connecticut and New Haven seemed on several occasions in danger from the Dutch, particularly after the recapture of New Amsterdam in 1673, New England"s chief danger was always from the Indians. Both French and Dutch were believed to be instrumental in inciting Indian warfare, one along the southwestern border, the other at various points in the north, notably in New Hampshire and Maine. But, except for occasional Indian forays and for house-burnings and scalpings in the more remote districts, there were only two serious wars in the seventeenth century--that against the Pequots in 1637 and the great War of King Philip in 1675-1676.
The Pequot War, which was carried on by Connecticut with a few men from Ma.s.sachusetts and a number of Mohegan allies, ended in the complete overthrow of the Pequot nation and the extermination of nearly all its fighting force. It began in June, 1637, with the successful attack by Captain John Mason on the Pequot fort near Groton, and was brought to an end by the battle of Fairfield Swamp, July 13, where the surviving Pequots made their last stand. Sa.s.sacus, the Pequot chieftain, was murdered by the Mohawks, among whom he had sought refuge; and during the year that followed wandering members of the tribe, whenever found, were slain by their enemies, the Mohegans and Narragansetts. An entire Indian people was wiped out of existence, an achievement difficult to justify on any ground save that of the extreme necessity of either slaying or being slain. The relentless pursuit of the scattered and dispirited remnants of these tribes admits of little defense.
The overthrow of the Pequots opened to settlement the region from Saybrook to Mystic and led to a treaty in 1638 with the Mohegans and Narragansetts, according to which harmony was to prevail and peace was to reign. But the outcome of this impracticable treaty was a five years"
struggle between the Mohegan chieftain, Uncas, actively allied with the colony of Connecticut, and Miantonomo, sachem of the Narragansetts, which involved Connecticut in a tortuous and often dishonorable policy of attempting to divide the Indians in order to rule them--a policy which led to many embarra.s.sing negotiations and b.l.o.o.d.y conflicts and ended in the murder of Miantonomo in 1643, by the Mohegans, at the instigation of the commissioners of the United Colonies. This alliance between Uncas and the colony lasted for more than forty years. It placed upon Connecticut the burden of supporting a treacherous and grasping Indian chief; it created a great deal of confusion in land t.i.tles in the eastern part of the colony because of indiscriminate Indian grants; it started the famous Mohegan controversy which agitated the colony and England also, and was not finally settled until 1773, one hundred and thirty years later; and it was, in part at least, a cause of King Philip"s War, because of the colony"s support of the Mohegans against their traditional enemies, the Narragansetts and Niantics.
The presence of the Indians in and near the colonies rendered frequent dealings with them a matter of necessity. The English settlers generally purchased their lands from the Indians, paying in such goods or implements or trinkets as satisfied savage need and desire. In so doing they acquired, as they supposed, a clear t.i.tle of ownership, though there can be no doubt that what the Indian thought he sold was not the actual soil but only the right to occupy the land in common with himself. As the years wore on, the problems of reservations, trade, and the sale of firearms and liquor engaged the attention of the authorities and led to the pa.s.sage of many laws. The conversion of the Indians to Christianity became the object of many pious efforts, and in Ma.s.sachusetts and Plymouth resulted in communities of "Praying Indians,"
estimated in 1675 at about four thousand individuals. In contact with the white man the Indian tended to deteriorate. He frequented the settlements often to the annoyance of the men and the dread of the women and children; he got into debt, was incurably slothful and idle, and developed an uncontrollable desire to drink and steal. Where the Indians were not a menace, they were a nuisance, and the colonies pa.s.sed many laws concerning the Indians which were designed to meet the one condition as well as the other.
But the real danger to New England came not from those Indians who occupied reservations and hung around the settlements, but from those who, with savage spirit unbroken, were slowly being driven from their hunting-grounds and nurtured an implacable hatred against the aggressive and relentless pioneers. The New Englanders numbered at this time some 80,000 individuals, with an adult and fighting population of perhaps 16,000; while the number of the Indians altogether may have reached as high as 12,000, with the Narragansetts, the strongest of all, mustering 4,000. The final struggle for possession of the main part of central and southern New England territory came in 1675, in what is known as King Philip"s War.
Scarcely had the fears aroused by the arrival of a Dutch fleet at New York and the capture of that city been allayed by the peace of Westminster in 1674, when rumors of Indian unrest began to spread through the settlements, and the dread of Indian outbreaks began to arouse new apprehensions in the hearts of the people. Hitherto no Indian chieftain had proved himself a born leader of his people. Neither Sessaquem, Sa.s.sacus, Pumham, Uncas, nor Miantonomo had been able to quiet tribal jealousies and draw to his standard against the English others than his own immediate followers. But now appeared a sachem who was the equal of any in hatred of the white man and the superior of all in generalship, who was gifted both with the power of appeal to the younger Indians and with the finesse required to rouse other chieftains to a war of vengeance. Philip, or Metacom, was the second son of old Ma.s.sasoit, the longtime friend of the English, and, upon the death of his elder brother Alexander in 1662, became the head of the Wampanoags, with his seat at Mount Hope, a promontory extending into Narragansett Bay. Believing that his people had been wronged by the English, particularly by those of Plymouth colony, and foreseeing that he and his people were to be driven step by step westward into narrower and more restricted quarters, he began to plot a great campaign of extermination. On June 24, 1675, a body of Indians fell on the town of Swansea, on the eastern side of Narragansett Bay, slew nine of the inhabitants and wounded seven others. Though a.s.sistance was sent from Ma.s.sachusetts and Plymouth, the burning and ma.s.sacring continued, extending to Rehoboth, Taunton, and towns northward. The settlements were isolated before the troops could reach them, their inhabitants were slain, cabins were burned, and prisoners were carried into captivity.
The Rhode Islanders fled to the islands; elsewhere settlers gathered in garrisoned forts and blockhouses and in new forts hastily erected.
Though the authorities of Connecticut and Ma.s.sachusetts sent agents among the Nipmucks hoping to prevent their alliance with Philip, the effort failed, and by August the tribes on the upper Connecticut had joined the movement and now began a determined and systematic destruction of the settlements in central New England. The famous ma.s.sacre and burning of Deerfield took place on September 12, the surviving inhabitants fleeing to Hatfield, leaving their town in ruins.
Hatfield, Northfield, Springfield, and Westfield were attacked in turn, and though the defense was sometimes successful, more often the defenders were ambushed and killed. So widespread was the uprising that during the autumn, a desultory warfare was carried on as far north as Falmouth, Brunswick, and Cas...o...b..y, where at least fifty Englishmen were slain by members of the Saco and Androscoggin tribes.
As yet the Narragansetts, bravest of all the southern New England Indians, whose chief was Canonchet, son of the murdered Miantonomo, had taken no part in the war. But as rumor spread that they had welcomed Philip and listened to his appeals and were probably planning to join in the murderous fray, war was declared against them on November 2, 1675, and a force of a thousand men and horse from Plymouth and Ma.s.sachusetts was drawn up on Dedham plain, under the command of General Josiah Winslow and Captain Benjamin Church. On December 19, the greater part of this force, aided by troops from Connecticut, fell on the Narragansetts in their swamp fort, south of the present town of Kingston, and after a fierce and b.l.o.o.d.y fight completely routed them, though at a heavy loss.
The tribe was driven from its own territory, and Canonchet fled to the Connecticut River, where he established a rallying point for new forays.
His followers allied themselves with the Wampanoags and Nipmucks and began a new series of ma.s.sacres. In February and March, 1676, they fell upon Lancaster, where they carried off Mrs. Rowlandson, who has left us a narrative of her captivity; upon Medfield, where fifty houses were burned; and upon Weymouth and Marlborough, which were raided and in part destroyed. Repeated a.s.saults in other quarters kept the western frontier of Ma.s.sachusetts in a frightful condition of terror; settlers were ambushed and scalped, others were tortured, and many were carried into captivity. Even the Pennacooks of southern New Hampshire were roused to action, though their share in the war was small. Here a hundred warriors sacked a village; there Indians skulking along trails and on the outskirts of towns cut off individuals and groups of individuals, shooting, scalping, and burning them. No one was safe. Again the commissioners of the United Colonies met in council and ordered a more vigorous prosecution of the campaign. More troops were levied and garrison posts fortified, but the first results were disastrous.
Captain Pierce of Scituate was ambushed at Blackstone"s River near Rehoboth, and his command was completely wiped out. Sudbury was destroyed in April, and a relieving force escaped only with heavy loss.
But the strength of the Indians was waning. Canonchet, run to earth near the Pawtuxet River, was captured and sentenced to death, and his execution was entrusted to Oneko, the son of Uncas. His head was cut off and carried to Hartford, and his body was committed to the flames. The loss of Canonchet was a bitter blow to Philip, who now saw his allies falling away and himself deserted by all but a few faithful followers.
The campaign--at last well in hand and directed by that prince of Indian fighters, Benjamin Church, now commissioned a colonel by General Winslow--was approaching an end. Using friendly savages as scouts, Colonel Church gradually located and captured stray bodies of Indians and brought them as captives to Plymouth. Finally, coming on the trail of Philip himself, he first intercepted his followers, and then, relentlessly pursuing the fleeing chieftain from one point to another, tracked him to his lair at his old stronghold, Mount Hope. There the great chief who had terrorized New England for nearly a year was slain by one of his own race. His ornaments and treasure were seized by the soldiers, and his crown, gorget, and two belts, all of gold and silver of Indian make, were sent as a present to Charles II. With the death of Philip, August 12, 1676, the whole movement collapsed, and the remaining hostile Indians, dispersed and in flight, with their leaders gone and starvation threatening, sought refuge among the northern tribes. Thus the last effort to check the English advance in southern and central New England was brought to an end. From this time on, the Indians in Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut lingered for a century and a half, a steadily dwindling remnant, wards of the governments and occupants of reservations, until they ceased to exist as a separate people.
The havoc wrought by the war was a great blow to the prosperity of New England. Probably more than six hundred whites had been slain or captured, and hundreds of houses and a score of villages had been burnt or pillaged; crops had been destroyed, cattle driven off, and agriculture in many quarters brought to a complete standstill. In 1676, there was little leisure to sow and less to reap. Provisions became increasingly scarce; none could be had near at hand, for none of the colonies had a surplus; and attempts to obtain them from a distance proved unavailing. Staples for trade with the West Indies decreased; the fur trade was curtailed; and fishing was hampered for want of men. To add to the confusion, a plague vexed the colonies. It seemed to all as if the hand of G.o.d lay heavily upon New England, and days of humiliation and prayer were appointed to a.s.suage the wrath of the Almighty. A Ma.s.sachusetts act of November, 1675, ascribed the war to the judgment of G.o.d upon the colony for its sins, among which were included an excess of apparel, the wearing of long hair, and the rudeness of worship, all marks of an apostasy from the Lord "with a great backsliding." The Puritan fear of divine displeasure adds a relieving note to the general despondency and must have stiffened the determination of the orthodox leaders to resist to the utmost all attempts to liberalize the life of the colony or to alter its character as a religious state patterned after the divine plan. King Philip"s War probably strengthened the position of the conservative element in Ma.s.sachusetts.
CHAPTER IX
THE BAY COLONY DISCIPLINED
Except for the northern frontier, where Indian forays and atrocities continued for many years longer, the last great struggle with the Indians in New England was finished. The next danger came from a different quarter and in a different form. In June, 1676, two months before the Indian War was over, one Edward Randolph arrived from England to make an inquiry into the affairs of Ma.s.sachusetts. That colony had scarcely weathered the ever-threatening peril of the New World when it was called upon to face an attack from the Old which endangered the continuance of those precious privileges for which the magistrates at Boston had contended with a vigor shrewd rather than wise. As we have seen, the position that Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sumed as a colony largely independent of British control was incompatible with England"s colonial and commercial policy, a position that was certain to be called in question as soon as the authorities at home were able to give serious attention to it.
This opportunity did not arrive until, in 1674, the plantations council was dismissed, and colonial business was handed over to the Privy Council and placed in the hands of a standing committee of that body known as the Lords of Trade. This committee, which was more dignified and authoritative than had been the old council, at once a.s.sumed a firmer tone toward the colonies. It caused a proclamation to be issued announcing the royal determination to enforce the acts of trade, and it made the King"s will known in America by means of new instructions to the royal governors there. It stated clearly the purpose of the Government to bring the colonies into a position of greater dependence on the Crown in the interest of the trade and revenues of the kingdom, and it showed no inclination to grant Ma.s.sachusetts, with all the charges and complaints against her, preferential treatment. At the same time it was not disposed to pay much attention to religious differences, minor misdemeanors, and neighborhood quarrels, if only the colony would conform to British policy in all that concerned the royal prerogative and the authority of Parliament; but it made it perfectly plain that continued infractions of parliamentary acts and royal commands would not be condoned.
Had the leaders of Ma.s.sachusetts been more complaisant and less given to a policy of evasion and delay, it is not unlikely that the colony would have been allowed to retain its privileges; and had they been less absorbed in themselves and more observant of the world outside, they might have seen the changes that were coming over the temper and purpose of those in England who were shaping the relations between England and her colonies. But Ma.s.sachusetts had grown provincial since the Restoration, looking backward rather than forward and moving in very narrow channels of thought and life, so that she was wrapped up in matters of purely local interest. The clergy were struggling to maintain their control in colony and college, while the deputies in the legislature, representing in the main the conservative country districts, were upholding the clerical party against some of the magistrates, who represented the town of Boston and were inclined to take a more liberal and progressive view of the matter. These country members saw in England"s att.i.tude only the desire of a despotic Stuart regime to suppress the liberties of a Puritan commonwealth, and failed to see that the investigation into the affairs of Ma.s.sachusetts was but an effort to establish a colonial policy fundamental to England"s welfare and power.
It cannot be said that, from 1660 to 1684, the Government in England displayed undue animus toward the colony. It allowed Ma.s.sachusetts to do a great many things that in law she had no right to do, such as coining money and issuing a charter to Harvard College. Its demand for a broadening of the Ma.s.sachusetts franchise was in the interest of liberty and not against it, and the insistence on freedom of worship deserves no reproof. Its condemnation of many of the Ma.s.sachusetts laws as oppressive and unjust shows that in some respects legal opinion in England at this time was more advanced than that in Ma.s.sachusetts and Connecticut, and, even at its worst, English law did not go to the Mosaic code for its precedents. There is a distinct note of cruelty and oppression in some of the Ma.s.sachusetts and Connecticut legislation at this time, and many of the Puritan measures were harsh and arbitrary and liable to abuse. Even the Government"s support of the Mason and Gorges claims was not dishonorable, and while it may have been unwise and, in equity, unjust, it was not without excuse. The Government listened to complaints of persecution, as any sovereign power is required to do, and was naturally impressed with the weightiness of some of the charges; yet so little inclined was it to tamper with Ma.s.sachusetts that the colony might have succeeded, for a longer time at least, in maintaining the integrity of its control, had not the question of colonial trade brought matters to a crisis.
Under Charles II, finances presented a difficult problem, for Parliament in controlling appropriations took no responsibility for the collection of money granted. To meet the deficit which during the earlier years of the reign was ever present, efforts were made to increase the revenue from customs, and so successful was this policy that, after 1675, these customs revenues came to be looked upon as among England"s greatest sources of wealth. Now, inasmuch as trade with the colonies was one of the largest factors contributing to this result, England, as she could not afford to maintain colonies that would do nothing to aid her, came more and more to value her overseas possessions for their commercial importance, cla.s.sing as valuable a.s.sets those that advanced her prosperity, and treating as insubordinate those that disregarded the acts of trade and thwarted her policy. The independence that Ma.s.sachusetts claimed was diametrically opposed to the growing English notion that a colony should be subordinate and dependent, should obey the acts of trade and navigation, and should recognize the authority of the Crown; and, from what they heard of the temper of New England, English statesmen suspected that Ma.s.sachusetts was doing none of these things.
Edward Randolph, who was sent over in 1676 to make inquiry into the affairs of the colony, was a native of Canterbury, a former student of Gray"s Inn, and at this time forty-three years old. The fact that he was connected by marriage with the Mason family accounts for his interest in the efforts of Gorges and Mason to break the hold of Ma.s.sachusetts upon New Hampshire and Maine. He was a personal acquaintance of Sir Robert Southwell, the diplomatist, and of Southwell"s intimate friend, William Blathwayt, an influential English official interested in the colonies.
He had been in the employ of the government, and now, probably at the instance of Southwell and Blathwayt, he was selected to fill the difficult and thankless post of commissioner to New England. That he had ability and courage no one can doubt, and that he pursued his course with a tenacity that would have won commendation in other and less controversial fields, his career shows. His devotion to the interests of the Crown and his loyalty to the Church of England steeled him against the almost incessant attacks and rebuffs that he was called upon to endure, and his entire inability to see any other cause than his own saved him from the discouragements that must certainly have broken a man more sensitive than himself. He exhibited at times some of the obduracy of the zealot and martyr; at others he displayed unexpected good sense in protesting against extremes of action that he thought unjust or unwise. He was honest and indefatigable in the pursuit of what he believed to be his duty, and was ill-requited for his labors, but he was a persistent fault-finder and his letters are masterpieces of complaint.
He was thrice married, his second wife dying at the height of his troubles in Ma.s.sachusetts, and he had five children, all daughters, one of whom proved a grievous disappointment to him. Though he held many offices, he was always in debt and died poor, at the age of seventy, in Accomac County in Virginia. He was far from being the best man to send to New England, but his natural obstinacy and his determination to overcome difficulties were intensified by the discourteous and tactless manner in which he was received by the Puritans. He had no sympathy with the efforts of the "old faction" to save the colony, and the people of Ma.s.sachusetts responded with a bitter and lasting hate.
Randolph landed at Boston on June 10, and remained in the colony until the end of July, about six weeks altogether. He visited Plymouth, New Hampshire, and Maine, interviewed men in authority and all sorts of other people, and he came to the conclusion that the majority of the inhabitants were discontented with the Boston regime. The magistrates ignored his presence as much as they dared, refusing to recognize him as anything but an enemy representing the Mason and Gorges claims, and insisting that though the King might enlarge their privileges he could not abridge them. Randolph, thoroughly nettled, returned to England prepared to do his worst. He sent several reports to the King and constantly appeared before the Privy Council and the Lords of Trade, each time doing all the damage that he could. He had undoubtedly got much of his information from prejudiced sources or from hearsay, and he was as eager to retail it as had been the Ma.s.sachusetts authorities to blast the moral character of the King"s commissioners. He denounced the "old faction" as cunning, deceptive, overbearing, and disloyal; he called the clergy proud, ignorant, imperious, and inclined to sedition; and he denounced those in authority as "inconsiderable mechanicks, packed by the prevailing party of the factious ministry, with a fellow-feeling both in the command and the profits." His picture of the colony, containing much that was near the truth, was at the same time distorted, out of proportion, and in parts almost a caricature. His most effective reports were those which laid stress upon the failure of the colony to obey the navigation acts and the royal commands, and upon its use of the word "Commonwealth," as if the corporation were already an independent state. These reports were accepted by the English authorities as correct statements of fact, for they seemed to be confirmed by the evidence of London merchants and by at least one West Indian governor, who knew the colony and had no personal interests at stake.
In October, 1676, Ma.s.sachusetts sent over two of its leading men, William Stoughton, a magistrate, and Peter Bulkeley, speaker of the House of Representatives, to ward off, if possible, the attack on the colony, but with characteristic short-sightedness gave them no authority to discuss officially anything but the Mason and Gorges claims. For more than two years these men, representative rather of the moderate party than of the "old faction" in the colony, remained in England, frequently appearing before the Lords of Trade, where they were subjected to a searching examination at the hands of a not very sympathetic body of men. The meetings in the Council Chamber in Whitehall, where the committee sat, were occasions full of interest and excitement. At one of them, on April 8, 1677, Stoughton, Bulkeley, Randolph, Mason, and Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of New York for the Duke, were all present, and the agents must have found the situation awkward and embarra.s.sing. The committee expressed its resentment at the colony"s habit of disobedience and evasion, and showed no inclination to adopt a moderate policy, advocating, on the contrary, investigation "from the whole root." The position of a Ma.s.sachusetts agent in England during these trying years was most undesirable, and so many difficulties and discouragements did Stoughton and Bulkeley encounter that several times they asked for permission to return home and once, at least, had to go to the country for their health. But whatever were the troubles of an agent in England, they were trifling as compared with those which confronted him at home when he failed, as he almost invariably did fail, to obtain all that the colony expected. Cotton Mather tells us that Norton died in 1663 of melancholy and chagrin, and that for forty years there was not one agent but met "with some very froward entertainment among his countrymen." No wonder it was always difficult to find men who were willing to go.
At first the Lords of Trade favored the sending of a supplemental charter and the extending of a pardon to the colony; but as the evidence against Ma.s.sachusetts acc.u.mulated, they began to consider the revision of the laws, the appointment of a collector of customs and a royal governor, and even the annulment of the charter itself. In short, they determined to bring Ma.s.sachusetts "under a more palpable declaration of obedience to his Majesty." The general court of the colony, although it had said that "any breach in the wall would endanger the whole," was at last frightened by the news from England and pa.s.sed an order in October, 1677, that the laws of trade must be strictly observed, and later magistrates and deputies alike took the oath of allegiance prescribed by the Crown, promising to drop the word "Commonwealth" for the future. The members of the a.s.sembly wrote an amazing letter, pietistic and cringing, in which they prostrated themselves before the King, asked to be numbered among his "poore yet humble and loyal subjects," and begged for a renewal of all their privileges. At best such a letter could have done little in England to increase respect for the colony, but any good results expected from it were completely destroyed by the serious blunder which the colony made at this time in purchasing from the Gorges claimants the t.i.tle to the province of Maine, which with New Hampshire had recently been declared by the chief justices of the King"s Bench and Common Pleas to lie outside of the jurisdiction of Ma.s.sachusetts. This attempt to obtain, without the royal consent, a territory which the legal advisers of the Crown had decided Ma.s.sachusetts could not have, only strengthened the determination of the authorities in England to bring the colony into the King"s hand by the appointment of a royal governor. For the moment, however, the uprising of Bacon in Virginia and the Popish Plot in England so distracted the Government that it was obliged to slight or to postpone much of its business. It did succeed in settling the perplexing question of New Hampshire, for, having obtained from Mason a renunciation of all his claims to the Government, though leaving him with full t.i.tle to the soil, it organized that territory as a colony under the control of the Crown.
With these matters out of the way or less exigent, the Lords of Trade returned to the affairs of New England. They wished, before proceeding to extremes, to give Ma.s.sachusetts another chance to be heard; so, in dismissing the agents in the autumn of 1679, they instructed the colony to send over within six months others fully prepared "to answer the misdemeanors imputed against them." They also decided to send Randolph back as collector and surveyor of customs, with letters to all the New England colonies, ordering them to enforce the acts of trade, and another to Ma.s.sachusetts requiring that she provide a minister for those in Boston who wished an Anglican church. Randolph, who left for New England for the second time, in December, 1679, has the distinction of being the first royal official appointed for any of the northern colonies. Almost his first task was to settle the province of New Hampshire under royal authority, with a government consisting of a president, a council, and an a.s.sembly. Thus British control in New England was making progress, and the worst fears of the "old faction" in Ma.s.sachusetts were being realized.
It is difficult to understand the att.i.tude of Ma.s.sachusetts. Her leaders probably thought that with the settlement of the Mason and Gorges claims the most serious source of trouble with England was disposed of. They believed, honestly enough, though the wish was father to the thought, that the colony lay beyond the reach of Parliament and that the laws of England were bounded by the four seas and did not reach America. Hence they deemed the navigation acts an invasion of their liberties and could not bring themselves to obey them. As to England"s new colonial policy, it is doubtful if they grasped it at all, or would have acknowledged it as applicable to themselves, even if they had understood it. The experiences and reports of their agents in England seem to have taught them nothing and served only to confirm their belief that a Stuart was a tyrant and that all English authorities were natural enemies. They had labored and suffered in the vineyard of the Lord and they wished to be let alone to enjoy their dearly won privileges. Randolph wrote, soon after his arrival in New England, that the colony was acting "as high as ever," and that "it was in every one"s mouth that they are not subject to the laws of England nor were such laws in force until confirmed by their authority." The colony neglected to send the agents demanded, alleging expense, the dangers of the sea, the difficulty of finding any one to accept the post, and their belief that King and council were "taken up with matters of greater importance," until finally in September, 1680, the King wrote an exceedingly sharp letter, calling the excuses "insufficient pretences," and commanding that agents be sent within three months. Strange to say the colony even then allowed a year to elapse before complying, and again instructed those whom they sent to agree to nothing that concerned the charter.
Before the agents arrived in the summer of 1682, the royal patience was exhausted. Randolph"s continued complaints that he was obstructed in every way in the performance of his duties; the act of the colony in setting up a naval office of its own; the revival of an old law imposing the death penalty upon any one who should "attempt the alteration or subversion of the frame of government"; the opinion of the Attorney-General that the colony had done quite enough to warrant the forfeiture of its charter; and the delay in sending the agents, which seemed a further flouting of the royal commands--all these things brought matters to a crisis. Therefore, when finally the Ma.s.sachusetts agents reached England, they found the situation hopeless. "It is a hard service we are engaged in," they wrote; "we stand in need of help from Heaven." Their want of powers provoked the Lords of Trade to say that unless they were procured, the charter would be forfeited at once.
Randolph was called back in May, 1683, to aid in the legal proceedings which were immediately set on foot. Other charters were falling: that of the Bermuda Company was under attack; that of the City of London was already forfeited; and those of other English boroughs were in danger.
On June 27, a writ of _quo warranto_ was issued out of the Court of King"s Bench against the colony. The agents, refusing to defend the suit, returned to New England, and the writ was given to Randolph to serve. He reached Boston in October, but owing to delays in the colony and a tempestuous voyage back, he was unable to return it to England within the allotted time. The first attempt failed, but another was soon made. By the advice of the Attorney-General, suit was brought in the Court of Chancery by writ of _scire facias_ against the company, and upon the rendering of judgment for non-appearance the charter was declared forfeited on October 23, 1684.
Though the colony was given no opportunity to defend the suit, the charter was legally vacated according to the forms of English law. The colony was but a corporation, its charter but a corporation charter, and in only one respect did it differ from other corporations, namely, its residence in America. The methods of vacating corporate charters in England were definite and in this case were strictly followed. Had Ma.s.sachusetts been a corporation in fact as well as in law, it is doubtful if the question of illegality would ever have been raised; but as this particular corporation was a Puritan commonwealth, the issue was so vital to its continuance as to lead to the charge of unjust and illegal oppression. On moral grounds a defence of the colony is always possible, though it is difficult to uphold the Ma.s.sachusetts system. It was certainly neither popular nor democratic, tolerant nor progressive, and in any case it must eventually have undergone transformation from within. The city of Boston was increasing in wealth and importance, and trade was bringing it into ever closer contact with the outside world.
There were growing up in the colony more open-minded and progressive men who were opposing the dominance of the country party, which found its last governor in Leverett, its chief advocates among the clergy, and its strength in the House of Representatives, and which wished to preserve things as they always had been. The leaders of this conservative party, Danforth, Nowell, Cooke, and others, struggled courageously against all concessions, but they were bound to be beaten in the end.
That the conservative members of the colony were thoroughly in earnest and thoroughly convinced of the absolute righteousness of their position, admits of no doubt. No man could speak of the loss of the charter as a breach in the "Hedge which kept us from the Wild Beasts of the Field," as did Cotton Mather, without expressing a fear of a Stuart, of an Anglican, and of a Papist that was as real as the terrors of witchcraft. To the orthodox Puritans, the preservation of their religious doctrines and government and the maintenance of their moral and social standards were a duty to G.o.d, and to admit change was a sin against the divine command. But such an unyielding system could not last; in fact, it was already giving way. Though conjecture is difficult, it seems likely that the English interference delayed rather than hastened the natural growth and transformation of the colony, because it united moderates and irreconcilables against a common enemy--the authority of the Crown.