The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume I Part 19

Blaithwait wrote to the Governor and recommended the proclaiming of King James without delay. This was done with great ceremony in the high street of Boston (April 20th)."[194]

Mr. Joseph Dudley, a native of the colony, and one of the two last agents sent to England, was appointed the first Governor after the annulling of the Charter. Mr. Hutchinson says: "The 15th of May (1686), the _Rose_ frigate arrived from England, with a commission to Mr. Dudley as President, and divers others, gentlemen of the Council, to take upon them the administration of government." Mr. Dudley's short administration was not very grievous. The House of Deputies, indeed, was laid aside; but the people, the time being short, felt little or no effect from the change. Mr. Stoughton was Mr. Dudley's chief confidant.

Mr. Dudley professed as great an attachment to the interest of the colony as Mr. Stoughton, and was very desirous of retaining their favour. A letter from Mr. Mather, then the minister of the greatest influence, is a proof of it.[195] There was no molestation to the Churches of the colony, but they continued both wors.h.i.+p and discipline as before. The affairs of the towns were likewise managed in the same manner as formerly. Their Courts of justice were continued upon the former plan, Mr. Stoughton being at the head of them. Trials were by juries, as usual. Dudley considered himself as appointed to preserve the affairs of the colony from confusion until a Governor arrived and a rule of administration should be more fully settled.[196]

The administration of Dudley was only of seven months' duration. Dudley was superseded by Sir Edmund Andros, who arrived at Boston on the 20th of December (1686), with a commission from King James for the government of New England.[197] He was instructed to appoint no one of the Council to any offices but those of the least estates and characters, and to displace none without sufficient cause; to continue the former laws of the country, as far as they were not inconsistent with his commission or instructions, until other regulations were established by the Governor and Council; to allow no printing press; to give universal toleration in religion, but encouragement to the Church of England; to execute the laws of trade, and prevent frauds in Customs.[198] But Andros had other instructions of a more despotic and stringent character; and being, like King James himself, of an arbitrary disposition, he fulfilled his instructions to the letter. And when his Royal master was dethroned for his unconst.i.tutional and tyrannical conduct, Andros was seized at Boston and sent prisoner to England, to answer for his conduct; but he was acquitted by the new Government, not for his policy in New England, but because he had acted according to his instructions, which he pleaded as his justification.[199]

It is singular that _toleration_ in Ma.s.sachusetts should have been proclaimed by the arbitrary James, in a declaration above and contrary to the law for which he received the thanks of the ministers in that colony, but which resulted in his loss of his Crown in England.

"James's Declaration of Indulgence was proclaimed (1687), and now, for the first time, Quakers, Baptists, and Episcopalians enjoyed toleration in Ma.s.sachusetts. That system of religious tyranny, coeval with the settlement of New England, thus unexpectedly received its death-blow from a Catholic bigot, who professed a willingness to allow religious freedom to others as a means of securing it for himself." ... "Mather, who carried with him (1689) an address from the ministers, thanking James, in behalf of themselves and their brethren, for his Declaration of Indulgence arriving in England while King James was yet in power, had been graciously received by that monarch. But, though repeatedly admitted to an audience, his complaints against the Royal Governor (Andros) had produced no effect. The Revolution intervening, he hastened, with greater hopes of success, to address himself to the new King, and his remonstrances prevented, as far as Ma.s.sachusetts was concerned, the despatch of a circular letter confirming the authority of all Colonial officers holding commissions from James II. The letters actually received at Boston authorized those in authority to retain provisionally the administration, and directed that Andros and the other prisoners should be sent to England."[200]

I have now traced the proceedings of the founders and rulers of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony during the fifty-four years of their first Charter, with short notices of some occurrences during the three years'

reign of James the Second, their revenge not only in his own dethronement, but also on his Governor Andros, for the tyranny which he practised upon them by imprisoning him and his helpers, and by Royal command sending them as prisoners to England, together with the removal of the local officers appointed by Andros and the restoration of their own elected authorities until further instruction from the new King.

There can be no question that the founders of that colony were not only men of wealth, but men of education, of piety, of the highest respectability, of great energy, enterprize, and industry, contributing to the rapid progress of their settlements and increase of their wealth, and stamping the character of their history; but after their emigration to Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, and during the progress of their settlements and the organization and development of their undertakings, their views became narrowed to the dimensions of their own Plantation in government and trade, irrespective of the interests of England, or of the other neighbour colonies, and their theology and religious spirit was of the narrowest and most intolerant character. They a.s.sumed to be the chosen Israel of G.o.d, subject to no King but Jehovah, above the rulers of the land, planted there to cast out the heathen, to smite down every dagon of false wors.h.i.+p, whether Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, or Quaker, and responsible to no other power on earth for either their legislative or administrative acts. I will not here recapitulate those acts, so fully stated in preceding pages, and established by evidence of doc.u.ments and testimony which cannot be successfully denied. But there are two features of their pretensions and government which demand further remark.

I. The first is the character and narrowness of the foundation on which rested their legislation and government. None but members of the Congregational Churches were eligible to legislate or fill any office in the colony, or even to be an elector. A more narrow-minded and corrupting test of qualification for civil or political office, or for the elective franchise, can hardly be conceived.[201] However rich a man might be, and whatever might be his education or social position, if he were not a member of the Congregational Church he was an "alien in the Commonwealth" of the Ma.s.sachusetts Israel, was ineligible for office, or to be an elector; while his own servant, if a member of the Church, though not worth a s.h.i.+lling, or paying a penny to the public revenue, was an elector, or eligible to be elected to any public office. The non-members of the Congregational Church were subject to all military and civil burdens and taxes of the State, without any voice in its legislation or administration. Such was the free (?) Government of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, eulogized by New England historians during half a century, until abolished by judicial and royal authority. What would be thought at this day of a Government, the eligibility to public office and the elective franchise under which should be based on members.h.i.+p in a particular Church?

II. But, secondly, this Government must be regarded as equally unjust and odious when we consider not merely the sectarian basis of its a.s.sumptions and acts against the Sovereign on the one hand, and the rights of citizens of Ma.s.sachusetts and of neighbouring colonies on the other, but the small proportion of the population enfranchised in comparison with the population which was disfranchised. Even at the beginning it was not professed that the proportion of Congregational Church members to the whole population was more than one to three; in after years it was alleged, at most, not to have been more than one to six.

This, however, is of little importance in comparison with the question, what was the proportion of electors to non-electors in the colony? On this point I take as my authority the latest and most able apologist and defender of the Ma.s.sachusetts Government, Dr. Palfrey. He says: "Counting the lists of persons admitted to the franchise in Ma.s.sachusetts, and making what I judge to be reasonable allowance for persons deceased, I come to the conclusion that the number of freemen in Ma.s.sachusetts in 1670 may have been between 1,000 and 1,200, or one freeman to every four or five adult males."[202]

The whole population of the colony at this time is not definitely stated, but there was one elector to every "four or five" of the adult "_males_." This eleven hundred men, because they were Congregationalists, influenced and controlled by their ministers, elected from themselves all the legislators and rulers of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony in civil, judicial, and military matters, who bearded the King and Parliament, persecuted all who dissented from them in religious wors.h.i.+p, encroached upon the property and rights of neighbouring colonies, levied and imposed all the burdens of the State upon four-fifths of their fellow (male) colonists who had no voice in the legislation or administration of the Government. Yet this sectarian Government is called by New England historians a free Government; and these eleven hundred electors--electors not because they have property, but because they are Congregationalists--are called "the people of Ma.s.sachusetts," while four-fifths of the male population and more than four-fifths of the property are utterly ignored, except to pay the taxes or bear the other burdens of the State, but without a single elective voice, or a single free press to state their grievances or express their wishes, much less to advocate their rights and those of the King and Parliament.

III. Thirdly, from the facts and authorities given in the foregoing pages, there cannot be a reasonable pretext for the statement that the rulers of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay had not violated both the objects and provisions of the Royal Charter, variously and persistently, during the fifty-four years of its existence; while there is not an instance of either Charles the First or Second claiming a single prerogative inconsistent with the provisions of the Charter, and which is not freely recognized at this day in the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain, by the free inhabitants of every Province of the British Empire. The fact that neither of the Charleses asked for anything more than the toleration of Episcopal wors.h.i.+p, never objected to the perfect freedom of wors.h.i.+p claimed by the Congregationalists of Ma.s.sachusetts; and the fact that Charles the Second corresponded and remonstrated for twenty years and more to induce the rulers of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay to acknowledge those rights of King and Parliament, and their duties as British subjects, shows that there could have been no desire to interfere with their freedom of wors.h.i.+p or to abolish the Charter, except as a last resort, after the failure of all other means to restrain the disloyal and oppressive acts of the rulers of that one colony. In contradistinction to the practice of other colonies of New England, and of every British colony at this day, Charles the First and Second were bad kings to England and Scotland, but were otherwise to New England; and when New England historians narrate at great length, and paint in the darkest colours, the persecutions and despotic acts of the Stuart kings over England and Scotland, and then infer that they did or sought to do the same in New England, they make groundless a.s.sumptions, contrary to the express declarations and policy of the two Charleses and the whole character and tenor of New England history. The demands of Charles the Second, and the conditions on which he proposed to continue the first Charter in 1662, were every one sanctioned and provided for in the second Royal Charter issued by William and Mary in 1690, and under which, for seventy years, the Government was milder and more liberal, the legislation broader, the social state more happy, and the colony more loyal and prosperous than it had ever been during the fifty-four years of the first Charter. All this will be proved and ill.u.s.trated in the following chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 180: The Ma.s.sachusetts Court had applied to Cromwell for permission to use the word "Commonwealth" instead of the word "Plantation," as expressed in their Charter, but were refused. They afterwards adopted it of their own accord.]

[Footnote 181: Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. I., Chap.

xiv., pp. 500, 506.

Their attempt to bribe the King was not the less bribery, whether Cranfield, for his own amus.e.m.e.nt, or otherwise to test their virtue, suggested it to them or not. But without any suggestion from Cranfield they bribed the King's clerks from their fidelity in the Privy Council, and bribed others "to obtain favour." The whole tenor of Scripture injunction and morality is against offering as well as taking bribes.

After authorizing the employment of _bribery_ in England to promote their objects, the Court closed their sittings by appointing "a day for solemn humiliation throughout the colony, to implore the mercy and favour of G.o.d in respect to their sacred, civil, and temporal concerns, and more especially those in the hands of their agents abroad."

(Palfrey, Vol. III., B. iii, Chap. ix., pp. 374, 375.)]

[Footnote 182: Palfrey's History of New England, Vol. III., B. iii., Chap. ix., pp. 372, 373.

"The agents of the colony, Messrs. Dudley and Richards, upon their arrival in England, found his Majesty greatly provoked at the neglect of the colonists not sending before; and in their first letters home they acquainted the Court with the feelings of the King, and desired to know whether it was best to hazard all by refusing to comply with his demands, intimating that they 'seriously intended to submit to the substance.' At that time they had not been heard before the Council; but soon after, on presenting the address which had been forwarded by their hands, they were commanded to show their powers and instructions to Sir Lionel Jenkins, Secretary of State; and on their perusal, finding these powers wholly inadequate, they were informed by Lord Radnor that the Council had agreed _nem. con._ to report to his Majesty, that unless further powers were speedily obtained, a _quo warranto_ should proceed in Hilary Term." (Barry's History of Ma.s.sachusetts, First Period, Chap.

xvii, p. 471. Hutchinson, Vol. I., p. 335.)]

[Footnote 183: _Note_ by the historian Hutchinson.--"The clergy turned the scale for the last time. The balance which they had held from the beginning, they were allowed to retain no longer."]

[Footnote 184: Hutchinson's History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Vol. I., pp.

336, 337.]

[Footnote 185: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 186: Palfrey's History of New England, Vol. III., B. iii., Chap. ix., p. 374. Mr. Palfrey, pp. 375, 376, in a note, gives the following abstract of Randolph's charges presented to the Court: "1.

They a.s.sume powers that are not warranted by the Charter, which is executed in another place than was intended. 2. They make laws repugnant to those of England. 3. They levy money on subjects not inhabiting the colony (and consequently not represented in the General Court). 4. They impose an oath of fidelity to themselves, without regarding the oath of allegiance to the King. 5. They refuse justice by withholding appeals to the King. 6. They oppose the Acts of Navigation, and imprison the King's officers for doing their duty. 7. They have established a Naval Office, with a view to defraud the customs. 8. No verdicts are ever found for the King in relation to customs, and the Courts impose costs on the prosecutors, in order to discourage trials. 9. They levy customs on the importation of goods from England. 10. They do not administer the oath of supremacy, as required by the Charter. 11. They erected a Court of Admiralty, though not empowered by Charter. 12. They discountenance the Church of England. 13. They persist in coining money, though they had asked forgiveness for that offence." (Chalmers' Annals, p. 462.)]

[Footnote 187: _Ib._, p. 377.]

[Footnote 188: "From this period (1683) one may date the origin of two parties--the Patriots and Prerogative men--between whom controversy scarcely intermitted, and was never ended until the separation of the two countries." (Minot's History of Ma.s.sachusetts, etc., Vol. I., p.

51.)]

[Footnote 189: In a Boston town meeting, held January 21, 1684, to consider the King's declaration, the Rev. Increase Mather, who was then President of Harvard College, and had for twenty years exerted more influence upon the public affairs of Ma.s.sachusetts than any other man for the same length of time, delivered a speech against submission to the King, which he miscalled "the surrender of the Charter." He said, among other things: "I verily believe we shall sin against the G.o.d of heaven if we vote in the affirmative to it. The Scripture teacheth us otherwise. That which the Lord our G.o.d hath given us, shall we not possess it? G.o.d forbid that we should give away the inheritance of our fathers. Nor would it be wisdom for us to comply. If we make a full and entire resignation to the King's pleasure, we fall into the hands of men immediately; but if we do not, we still keep ourselves in the hands of G.o.d; and who knows what G.o.d may do for us?" The historian says that "the effect of such an appeal was wholly irresistible; that many of the people fell into tears, and there was a general acclamation." (Barry's Colonial History of Ma.s.sachusetts, Vol. I., pp. 476, 477.)

It is not easy to squeeze as much extravagance and nonsense in the same s.p.a.ce as in the above quoted words of Increase Mather. Where was the Scripture which taught them not to submit complaints of their fellow-colonists to their King and his Council, the highest authority in the empire? Both Scripture and profane history furnish us with examples almost without number of usurpers professing that the usurpation and conquest they had achieved was "that which the Lord our G.o.d had given"

them, and which they should "possess" at all hazards as if it were an "inheritance of their fathers." The "inheritance" spoken of by Mr.

Mather was what had been usurped by the rulers of the colony over and above the provisions of their Charter against the rights of the Crown, the religious and political liberties of their fellow-colonists, and encroaching upon the lands of their white and Indian neighbours. Then to submit to the King and Council was to "fall into the hands of men immediately," but to contest with the King in the Courts of Chancery or King's Bench was to "keep themselves in the hands of G.o.d," who, it seems, according to Increase Mather's own interpretation, judged him and his adherents unworthy of retaining the "inheritance" of the Charter, the powers and objects of which they had so greatly perverted and abused. The King had expressly declared that the prosecution against the Charter would be abandoned if they would submit to his decision in regard to what had been matters of complaint and dispute between them and their fellow-colonists and Sovereign for more than fifty years, and which decision should be added to the Charter as explanatory regulations, and should embrace nothing affecting their religious liberties or local elective self-government. They refused, and lost their Charter; Rhode Island and Connecticut submitted, and even resigned their Charters, and were afterwards authorized to resume them, with the privileges and powers conferred by them unimpaired, including the election of their Governors as well as legislators, etc.]

[Footnote 190: Hutchinson's History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Vol. I., pp.

338, 339.]

[Footnote 191: Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. I., Chap.

xiv., p. 507. The notice to the Corporation and Company of Ma.s.sachusetts to answer to the writ of _quo warranto_ was received October, 1683; the final judgment of the Court vacating the Charter was given July, 1685, nearly two years afterwards. (Hutchinson, Vol. I., pp. 337-340.)]

[Footnote 192: History of New England, Vol. III., B. iii., Chap. ix., pp. 380, 381.]

[Footnote 193: Palfrey's History of New England, Vol. III., B. iii., Chap. ix., pp. 394, 395.]

[Footnote 194: History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Vol. I., p. 340.

"The Charter fell. This was the last effective act of Charles the Second relative to Ma.s.sachusetts; for before a new Government could be settled, the monarch was dead. His death and that of the Charter were nearly contemporary." (Barry's History of Ma.s.sachusetts, First Period, Chap.

xvii., p. 478).]

[Footnote 195: The conclusion of this letter is as follows: "Sir, for the things of my soul, I have these many years hung upon your lips, and ever shall; and in civil things am desirous you may know with all plainness my reasons of procedure, and that they may be satisfactory to you. I am, sir, your servant,

"J. DUDLEY.

From your own house, May 17th, '86."]

[Footnote 196: History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Vol. I., pp. 350, 351, 352.

"Though eighteen months had elapsed since the Charter was vacated, the Government was still going on as before. The General Court, though attended thinly, was in session when the new commission arrived. Dudley sent a copy of it to the Court, not as recognizing their authority, but as an a.s.sembly of princ.i.p.al and influential inhabitants. They complained of the commission as arbitrary, 'there not being the least mention of an a.s.sembly' in it, expressed doubts whether it were safe for him or them, and thus gloomily dissolved, leaving the government in Dudley's hands."

(Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap. xviii., p.

80.)]

[Footnote 197: Andros was appointed Captain-General and Vice-Admiral of Ma.s.sachusetts, New Hamps.h.i.+re, Maine, Plymouth, Pemaquid, and Narragansett during pleasure.]

[Footnote 198: (Holmes' Annals, etc., Vol. I., p. 419). Holmes adds: "To support a Government that could not be submitted to from choice, a small military establishment, consisting of two companies of soldiers, was formed, and military stores were transported. The tyrannical conduct of James towards the colonies did not escape the notice and censure of English historians." "At the same time that the Commons of England were deprived of their privileges, a like attempt was made on the colonies.

King James recalled their Charters, by which their liberties were secured; and he sent over Governors with absolute power. The arbitrary principles of that monarch appear in every part of his administration."

(Hume's History of England, _Act_ James II.)--_Ib._, pp. 419, 490.

Hutchinson says: "The beginning of Andros' administration gave great satisfaction. He made high professions as to the public good and the welfare of the people, both of merchants and planters; directed the judges to administer justice according to the custom of the place; ordered the former established rules to be observed as to rates and taxes, and that all the colony laws not inconsistent with his commission should be in force." (History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Vol. I., p. 353).]

[Footnote 199: "The complaints against Andros, coolly received by the Privy Council, were dismissed by order of the new King, on the ground that nothing was charged against the late Governor which his instructions would not fully justify." (Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap. xviii., p. 94.)]

[Footnote 200: Hildreth's History, etc., Vol. II., Chap. xviii., pp. 83, 93, 94.]