Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/218

 170 THE HISTORY OF BAERINGTON. to obtain a new charter for that colony. Increase Mather and Sir Henr' Ashurst joined the Committee in London. Plymouth also asked for a charter through Wiswall but the king granted one with Plymouth and Massachusetts in- cluded. This was not accepted by the Plymouth agent, nor acceptable to the people. Plymouth was stricken out. There was then danger that Plymouth would be united with New York and Mr. Mather stoutly opposed this. It was then proposed at Plymouth that Governor Hinckley should go to London to use his influence to obtain a separate charter, but the people of the towns when called on refused or neglected to vote money to pay the expenses. The people of Swansea, when appealed to, failed to respond in favor of Colonial existence or independence. In the warrants to the towns to vote on the matter the Plymouth Court desired "that it be known whether it be their minds that we should sit still and fall into the hands of those that can catch us, without using means to procure that which may be for our good, or to prevent that which may be our inconvenience." It was stated in the call that the expense of the charter would not take less than ;^50o sterling or $2,500. As the debt of the Colony was ;!{^27,ooo, the people poor and in debt, party feeling strong, and the colonists divided on many matters of local government, it was not strange that there was too little united interest in the matter to raise the extra tax for an object that seemed to many as of little consequence. The result was that on October 7, 1691, a charter was obtained by Mr. Mather and his associates for Massachusetts Bay, which included Plymouth Colony within its boundaries. The eldest born of the New England Colonies thus lost its paternal birthright and the coveted prize of colonial inde- pendence was transferred to the sister colony. Mr. Vviswall, the Plymouth agent, in a letter to Governor Hinckley, wrote, "All the frame of Heaven moves on one axis, and the whole of new England's interests seems designed to be loaden on one bottom, and her particular motions to concentrate to the Massachusetts tropic. You know who are wont to trot