Page:The Journal of American History Volume 9.djvu/456

 of the war in 1676, the sufferings of the people were enough to appal the stoutest heart. Ipswich furnished its full quota of fighting men and some of the ablest leaders in this terrible war were from Ipswich.

Less than ten years of partial peace and relief from this intolerable condition of warfare gave the Colonists some slight rest and relief, when the loss of their Charter aroused the bitterest resentment, from the Hudson River to the farthest Eastern extremity of Massachusetts.

Charles II, who died in 1685, was succeeded at once by James II, and when, on December 12, 1686, his appointee, Governor Andros, landed in Boston, the full cup of bitterness was now presented to the liberty-loving citizens of Massachusetts Bay.

In carrying on the expensive Indian War without calling on England for assistance, Massachusetts had exercised nearly all of the attributes of sovereignty and independence, and yet felt itself loyal to Great Britain, and its people were fairly astounded at that interference with their Colonial affairs, which was evidenced by King James when he sent Sir Edmund Andros as General Governor to Boston accompanied by the frigate Rose and a company of British Red-Coats.

Political speculations must have been rife in the vicinity of Boston on the arrival of the new Governor, whose coming was apparently to punish the Puritans of New England for their long period of actual intolerance. We must not forget that the Established Church of England had been barely able to maintain one Church in all of this territory, that one being in Boston; that the Quakers and their sect had been rudely and scandalously persecuted in Massachusetts; and that England had some provocation for this demonstration. There were very few lawyers at this time in all of New England and none in the Legislature of the Colony. The Pastors of the Churches were the leading politicians and it had been customary for them to take the lead in defending and maintaining the much-loved Charter, which gave the ruling Church of the Puritans power to protect itself. All of my ancestors were Puritans of the strictest sort, and I can but lament that their intense zeal for their Church led them so often into the advocacy of extreme measures.

Now that Great Britain had actually over thrown the Charter, and had again grasped the governing and legislative authority, what might reasonably be expected to follow? King James had evinced religious toleration in America by the favor and partiality he was showing William Penn, whose Quaker settlement at Philadelphia was now but four years old; but he was suspected of being also in league with the Catholic King of France to overthrow the Protestant religion throughout the realm of England, and our New England