The Founding of New England/XIII

CHAPTER XIII

THE REASSERTION OF IMPERIAL CONTROL

Puritan Revolution in England had failed to establish a permanent government, which should provide for the liberty of the individual, and be consonant with the genius of the English race. The ensuing restoration of the monarchy was not the return of a king crushing rebellion by force of arms. It was the peaceful reëstablishment of an institution demanded by large and important elements among the people, who considered it as essential to the welfare of the state, and who believed that the individuals who might occupy the throne had been taught sufficiently by the events of the preceding two decades not to attempt to overstep the position that had come to be assigned to them in the popular view of the constitution. But if, in the sphere of practical politics, the Revolution had merely shattered the political edifice without having been able to build another, in the domain of political thought it had left a rich legacy of ideas, which were to mould into modern form the institutions now reëstablished by the will of the people. We have already seen how quickly the anti-English party in Massachusetts had seized upon one of the most revolutionary of the Commonwealth doctrines, and proclaimed for themselves, as taught by Parliament, that &#8220;salus populi is suprema lex.&#8221; These ideas, however, were not to bear their full fruit until detached from their theological origin and divested of their religious associations. This secularization of politics, by the substitution of parties for churches as political forces, was necessary before further advances could be made either in religious toleration or in civil liberty; and it was in the years following the Restoration that the transition occurred both in old England and in New. In the latter, and more particularly in Massachusetts, theology and politics had been more closely intertwined than anywhere else in the Empire, and the earlier course of the struggle to break them asunder has been indicated in the preceding chapters. As we have there pointed out, the fundamental idea of theocracy was such as to preclude the possibility of either civil or religious freedom. The latter was too evidently fatal to the maintenance of that peculiar form of government to be allowed, if it could possibly be suppressed; and the former could not exist in a state in which the entire political power was to be permanently wielded by a small minority, whose essential qualification was its assent to an unique form of ecclesiastical organization. To what lengths the theocratical party in Massachusetts were willing to go in their efforts to remain in power had been shown by their contest with the Quakers. Although they were defeated in that struggle, amid many evidences that religion and politics were becoming more and more distinct in the minds of the people, the struggle was by no means ended, nor the transition complete. The political contest with the mother-country, which was now to begin in earnest, and which has often been made to seem a struggle for liberty against tyranny, was in large part, in this early stage, merely a continuance, under another guise, of the attempt of the theocracy to maintain its position and to defy all efforts, either from within or without, to interfere with its unrestricted exercise of power.

The early years of the Restoration mark, in many respects, the beginning of the modern period of English history; and this is as true of the Empire as a whole as of the constitutional developments at home. The far-seeing colonial policy of Clarendon sought to take advantage of the new outburst of energy which marked the people at that time, in order to round out and consolidate the nation&#8217;s colonial possessions; and the main aspects of imperial policy became military and commercial. The Act of Uniformity, passed in 1662, and aimed at the Puritans, did not include the colonies in its operation; and the course of events proved that the influence of the home authorities was thenceforth to be on the side of toleration in so far as America was concerned.

When Clarendon entered office, the colonial dependencies of England in the New World consisted in general of two isolated groups of settlements on the continent, with island outposts at the extreme north and south. A study of a map of the period reveals the essential weakness of the English position from the standpoint both of trade and of imperial defence. The two most important colonial events in Clarendon&#8217;s ministry&#8212;the great extension of English continental territory to the south by the settlement of the Carolinas, and the acquisition of New Netherland&#8212;added enormously to the strength and unity of the Empire. By the elimination of the Dutch, Clarendon argued that not only would the northern and southern colonies be relieved of the presence of a hostile state lying between them, but the menace of a flank or rear attack by the French would be largely removed from New England by securing the important military advantages of the Hudson-Mohawk route, the Lake Champlain gateway, and the friendship of the Iroquois. Moreover, so long as Holland, which was England&#8217;s most serious rival in the world&#8217;s carrying trade, should remain in possession of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, it would obviously be almost impossible to enforce the Navigation Acts, upon the observance of which, it was rightly believed at that stage, that the Empire&#8217;s commercial success and power of defense almost wholly depended.

In this last respect, however, New England, although settled ostensibly by loyal Englishmen, was almost as much of a danger as was New Netherland, settled by the Empire&#8217;s rivals. New England&#8217;s foreign commerce, which had amounted to very little before the English Civil War, had grown rapidly with the prosperity of the West-Indian sugar colonies, and by the time of the Restoration had assumed considerable proportions, both with the other colonies and with foreign countries. But New England merchants paid almost no attention to the laws of trade. In 1665, Captain Leverett, who had seized a Dutch vessel from Amsterdam trading at Boston, was strongly censured by the Massachusetts General Court, which announced that such seizures under the Navigation Acts would not be permitted &#8220;without the consent or allowance of authoritie heere established&#8221;; and the officer escaped severer punishment only by apologies and by solemnly protesting his fidelity to the local administration. Two years later, and again in 1658, Rhode Island officially proclaimed free trade with the Dutch; and in 1660, Connecticut, through her governor, denied that she had any laws not permitting it.

New England&#8217;s flouting of imperial authority, and more particularly, the pretensions of Massachusetts to what was virtually an independent sovereignty, were becoming notorious throughout the Empire and in foreign countries. If England should suffer herself to be defied with impunity by her own subjects, the decline in her prestige could hardly fail to result in the disintegration of the Empire, both from internal revolts and from external aggression. It may be pointed out that such a result, although serious for England, would have been fatal to the colonies, which would have played the part of Red Riding Hood to the French wolf.

The colonial policy of Clarendon was probably influenced, in the main, by the above considerations in respect to North America. But, when the new government came into power at the Restoration, there were other reasons why its attention should immediately be turned to New England. We have already noted how the trampling upon private rights by Massachusetts in her aggressive policy of annexation, the dissatisfaction with her government on the part of many of her own citizens, the persecution endured by the Quakers, and the various disputes between the colonies over boundaries and other matters, had occasioned complaints, increasing in number and seriousness. Owing mainly to the extraordinary ability and persistence which the Bay Colony had shown in the &#8220;gentle art of making enemies&#8221; for the past thirty years, all of the above matters, and others, in their worst possible light, were promptly brought to the attention of the restored King and Council. Throughout the years 1660 and 1661, the ghosts of old wrongs done by Massachusetts seem constantly to have haunted the meetings of the Council, to plead their cause against that colony. The appeals of the Quakers, and the effective but temporary succor afforded them, have already been noted in an earlier chapter. Edward Godfrey, who had been forced out of his government in Maine by the Massachusetts Commissioners, filed long reports of his grievances and of &#8220;the usurpations of the Bostoners.&#8221; Robert Mason protested against the annexation of New Hampshire, and disregard of his rights there, as did Ferdinando Gorges, grandson of old Sir Ferdinando, in reference to his Province of Maine. Captain Breeden gave a description of the political conditions in Massachusetts, emphasizing the distinction between freemen and non-freemen, the pretensions of sovereignty, and the refusal to use the oath of allegiance, and called attention to the shelter then being given to Whalley and Goffe, two of the regicide judges, who had been received with open friendliness by the colonial authorities. A group of English merchants, who had invested &#163;15,000&#8212;the equivalent of, perhaps, $300,000 to-day&#8212;in iron-works at Lynn, claimed that, for alleged debts, their agents had been arrested, their property seized, and that they were unable to gain satisfaction in the colonial courts.

A number of other petitions were, with one exception, directed against Massachusetts, and complained mainly of the illegality or disloyalty of that colony&#8217;s actions. Giles Sylvester, of Shelter Island, in the exception noted, asserted that New Haven had wrongfully confiscated three thousand acres of his land, because he would not acknowledge himself to be under its government.

Of more interest, however, than these petitions for the righting of individual wrongs, were the information and advice given by Samuel Maverick, who happened to be in England at the return of Charles. Maverick, as we have seen, had been living in Massachusetts some years before John Endicott or John Winthrop had thought of going there. For nearly forty years, since 1624, he had watched its development, and, as he possessed considerable ability and a fairly sound judgment, in addition to his almost unique personal knowledge of the colony&#8217;s history, his opinion would naturally carry weight with the English authorities. He had steadily opposed the political and religious policy of the Massachusetts leaders, and had been one of the signers of the Child petition in 1646. In the letters which, for some years following 1660, he frequently wrote to Lord Clarendon, his complaints of the past occupy a minor position, and his plans for the reorganization of the colonies evidently either coincided with those of the minister or largely helped to form them.

His suggestions embraced the elimination of the Dutch danger by the taking of New Netherland, for which he rightly thought that a small force would suffice. In view of the religious intolerance, the political disabilities, the pronounced disloyalty, the encroachments and boundary disputes, in evidence in New England, he also advised the strengthening of the royal control. He suggested that the oath of allegiance be insisted upon; that the colonial laws be revised so as to agree as nearly as possible with those of England; that writs be issued in the king&#8217;s name; that liberty of conscience be allowed; that the franchise be given to all freeholders, and the bounds of every patent accurately determined. As he estimated that three fourths of the people were loyal, and that the greater part of the Massachusetts non-freemen would favor the plan, he looked for no resistance; and although he suggested sending out a commission, he thought that no force would be necessary except for the capture of New Netherland. He certainly knew the colonies well, and, in part at least, may have been right in his assumptions. Outside of the government clique in Massachusetts there was undoubtedly a party of substantial men who would have welcomed such a settlement of matters, and the local authorities there were apparently doubtful as to how far their course of opposition to England would be acquiesced in by the country at large, should all the facts become known.

On the other hand, if the years following the Restoration marked the beginning of modern England, no less did they embrace the actual beginning of American history. The first settlers were in no real sense Americans. They were Englishmen, with English associations, connections, and habits of thought. Their natures were not altered fundamentally by sailing to a land where the sun rose five hours later. The remoteness of that land from the mother-country, and the frontier conditions which prevailed in it did, indeed, change, gradually but profoundly, the attitude of the settlers toward many matters. But that took time, and it was only with the rise of the second generation, which knew nothing of England by personal experience; which had no close ties with the home-land; whose minds and characters, for the worse as well as for the better, were wholly the products of the frontier, and whose interests and outlook were entirely provincial, that an American, as distinct from an English, strain may be said to appear in the history of our common race. New England had been settled for approximately a generation when the Restoration occurred, and there must have been, by then, a considerable element of native-born colonials from twenty to thirty years old. If, however, the ties which bound these younger citizens to England were looser, their education was poorer, their religious feelings weaker, and their opposition to the old theocratic policy stronger.

It is impossible, from these conflicting factors, and with only the evidence at hand, to say how nearly right was Maverick&#8217;s estimate of the people&#8217;s loyalty; but he was certainly wrong in believing that it would stand the test of taxes imposed from above, or of blundering and tactless officials. He was right, however, in urging that comprehensive reforms be undertaken in colonial management, and that the case was urgent in that it would become more difficult year by year. Something, indeed, required to be done, for the good of the colonies as well as of the Empire; and could it have been done wisely and tactfully, this was undoubtedly the moment to have accomplished it.

All those interested in New England could not fail to recognize, with varying emotions, that the situation had altered. The possibility that England might at last be able to exercise authority over her dependencies could bode nothing but evil to the rulers of Massachusetts, in view of their record, theological beliefs, and political aspirations. To the proprietors of Maine and New Hampshire, on the other hand, it meant the possibility of recovering their properties, which, in turn, portended unsettlement and trouble for the inhabitants of those provinces. For, although the course of Massachusetts in annexing the eastern settlements had been overbearing, illegal, and unscrupulous, the inhabitants were undoubtedly better off than they would have been under absentee proprietors, whose main interest would be in land-titles and taxes. Connecticut and New Haven, which were not possessed of any charters, and were exercising the powers of government without any warrant, could not but be anxious for the future; and Rhode Island, hoping, perhaps, for aid against her selfish and aggressive neighbors, hastened to proclaim the King within her borders. In 1661, John Winthrop the younger, then, and for fifteen years following, Governor of Connecticut, was appointed as agent to go to England, in order to present his colony&#8217;s address to the King and, if possible, to procure a charter. He was instructed to try to secure one as nearly like that of Massachusetts as might be, though this seems to have been considered improbable of attainment. He was also to have the bounds extended southward to Delaware Bay, and eastward to Plymouth, thus cynically ignoring the rights, legal or not, of New Netherland, New Haven, and Rhode Island. This conscienceless imperialism, which the colonists would have denounced as tyranny and usurpation if indulged in by England, was oddly balanced by New England conservatism in money matters; for Connecticut&#8217;s agent was instructed, in case he should be unable to acquire all of the coast to Virginia, to content himself with reaching the Hudson River, as the colony did &#8220;not judge it requisite to expend money upon a Pattent.&#8221;

As a matter of fact, however, an expenditure was made of about &#163;500; and, possibly as a result of the judicious disposal of this sum among the needy courtiers about the throne, Winthrop secured a charter so liberal in its terms as to serve as the constitution of colony and state until 1818. It created a corporation upon the place, provided for exactly the form of government which the colonists already enjoyed, permitted them to erect courts and make laws, and defined their bounds as extending from &#8220;Narragansett river, commonly called Narragansett Bay,&#8221; to the Pacific Ocean. These new limits not only included a large strip of Dutch territory and almost the whole of Rhode Island, but wiped out New Haven entirely.

The latter colony had made no effort to secure a patent since 1645, when the agent dispatched for that purpose had been drowned in the ill-fated and mysterious ship that had carried down with it, not only the political hopes, but the financial fortunes, of the colonists. There had been a growing element in the colony, as in Massachusetts, which was opposed to its theocratical government, and about the time of the Restoration, this opposition was giving Davenport and his followers much trouble. To the demand of sundry non-freemen that the franchise be extended, the New Haven Court had replied that they could not commit &#8220;weighty civill or military trusts into the hands of either a crafty Achitophell or a bloody Joab,&#8221; and that any one who should make such suggestions would be considered &#8220;troublers of our peace and disturbers of our Israell.&#8221; They asserted that to grant a voice in the government to any but church members would be to defeat the main end of the plantation, from &#8220;which we cannot be perswaded to divert.&#8221; This was exactly the stand and reasoning persisted in by the Massachusetts leaders at the same time. Both groups stood stubbornly with their backs toward the future, and their eyes on Judea, attempting to block the path to individual liberty with the whole strength of civil power and religious prejudice. They as little understood the new day which was dawning as did the restored Stuarts in England; and the New England theocrats and the English monarchs were at one in their resistance to the forces of freedom.

The disaffected element in New Haven, however, was large and important; and when Connecticut&#8217;s imperialistic ambitions were gratified, and she obtained a charter which gave her all her neighbor&#8217;s territory, a very large proportion of New Haven&#8217;s inhabitants indicated that they preferred the &#8220;Christless rule&#8221; of Connecticut, with its property qualification for the franchise, to that of the New Haven churches. Throughout the whole process of absorption of the smaller colony by its now aggrandized neighbor, both the action and the manner of Connecticut are difficult to defend. New Haven, however, could not have stood alone much longer. Her commercial hopes had been proved without foundation; she had unnecessarily, but seriously, offended the English Crown; her theocratic government was inflexible; and her annexation by the more democratic and progressive commonwealth was wholly an advantage, then and later.

In the ill-defined bounds of the Connecticut charter lay the seeds of many a future contest; but the effect upon Rhode Island was as immediate as upon New Haven. As we have already seen, the Narragansett country had for some time been a matter of controversy between the three adjoining colonies. As Connecticut now extended to the Bay, by royal grant, Massachusetts was seemingly excluded, and the contest lay between Rhode Island&#8217;s patent rights and those conferred in her neighbor&#8217;s new charter. John Clarke, in England at the same time as Winthrop, immediately petitioned the King for a new charter for Rhode Island. This was granted, its governmental provisions being virtually the same as those of the Connecticut patent, except for the notable clause that, as the Rhode Islanders were then holding forth the &#8220;livelie experiment that a most flourishing civell state may stand and best bee maintained. . . with a full libertie in religious concernments,&#8221; therefore no person in the colony should ever be &#8220;molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinione in matters of religion,&#8221; any law enacted in England notwithstanding. This patent, like the Connecticut one, was so liberal, and so well drawn, that it remained the constitution of colony and state for one hundred and eighty years.

While the issue of the charter was pending, Clarke and Winthrop had submitted the matter of the boundary between their two colonies to arbitration; and as a result, it had been agreed between them that the dividing line should be the Pawcatuck River, henceforth to be called the Narragansett. In the Rhode Island charter, therefore, that colony&#8217;s western boundary was made as agreed upon, the &#8220;clause in a late grant&#8221; to Connecticut notwithstanding. Connecticut, however, which had now become even more reckless in its career of land-grabbing than Massachusetts, repudiated its agent&#8217;s act, and undertook to enforce its claims to Rhode Island&#8217;s richest territory. Not only was Connecticut&#8217;s attitude selfish and unjust, but the dispute could not fail to add another legitimate reason for the exercise of imperial control by England. As Sir Thomas Holdich points out, &#8220;It was the man with the spade,&#8212;the agriculturist,&#8212;who first found the necessity for definite boundaries&#8221;; and while the fur trade or other activities of rival colonizing nations, or of separate colonies of the same nation, might give rise to disputes over frontiers, the extreme frequency and bitterness of such quarrels in New England were largely due to the type of political and economic life developed there. Without question, their adjustment demanded the intervention of the higher power of the home country.

At the time of Charles&#8217;s return, Massachusetts was represented in England by John Leverett, as her agent, who immediately sent word of the complaints beginning to pour in against the colony. As a result, the General Court dispatched addresses both to the King and to Parliament, and appointed Richard Saltonstall and Henry Ashurst to assist Leverett in the controversy now imminent. In the letter to Charles, the Court prayed that monarch, now &#8220;King over your British Israel, to cast a favorable eye upon your poore Mephibbosheth&#8221;; and defended themselves against sundry charges, particularly those concerning the killing of the Quakers. &#8220;Such was theire daingerous, impetuous and desperat turbulency,&#8221; the writers affirmed, that the magistrates had perforce had &#8220;to keepe the passage with the point of the sword held towards them&#8221;; and the Court unblushingly added that, had the Quakers not been restrained, &#8220;there was too much cause to feare that wee ourselves must quickly have died.&#8221;

In the private instructions to the colony&#8217;s agents, they were ordered to gain the interest of as many in Parliament and near the King as possible, to secure the renewal of the charter, to see that no superior power should be imposed, or appeals admitted, and even, if possible, to have the colony free from the English customs duties. If called upon to answer any charges embarrassing to the colony, they were instructed to plead lack of authority. The agents seem, however, to have done nothing in England to aid the colony; and Leverett&#8217;s remark that, if forced to admit appeals to the home country, the colonists would deliver New England to the Spaniards, although stupid enough, could hardly add to the government&#8217;s idea of the colonists&#8217; loyalty or discretion.

Although the King&#8217;s answer to the address was conciliatory, the Massachusetts Court, upon its receipt, appointed a committee to determine what, in its opinion, were the legal relations between the colony and England. Their report, which we have already discussed in the preceding chapter, considered Massachusetts to be virtually an independent sovereign state, with the right to defend itself by force of arms against any &#8220;annoyance.&#8221; The following spring, a thousand acres of land were granted to the Artillery Company of Middlesex, orders were issued for the better accommodation of the troopers of Essex, and work was ordered rushed in order to complete the fortifications on Castle Island.

Meanwhile, &#8220;considering the weight of theire occasions in England,&#8221; the Court appointed Simon Bradstreet and the Reverend John Norton to present a second address to the King, and to &#8220;indeavor to take off all scandal and objections&#8221; against the colony. Although their work in England was bitterly denounced as a failure, by some of the oligarchy, they seem, in reality, to have done fairly well, and the letter which the King next dispatched to the General Court was mild in tone and required nothing that did not make for the greater liberty of the individual colonist. After expressing himself as well pleased with the colony&#8217;s agents, the monarch confirmed the charter, and granted pardon to all who had infringed its terms in the past, as well as to any in the colony who had committed offenses against him in the late Civil War. Although he partially withdrew his protection from the Quakers, he required that any person wishing to worship according to the Book of Common Prayer be allowed to do so, and that persons of good and honest lives be admitted to the Communion, and their children to baptism. The franchise was to be granted to all those of competent estate, orthodox in religion, and not vicious in their lives. He also required that the oath of allegiance be taken, and that justice be administered in his name.

The results of an increase in religious liberty were as much dreaded by the leaders and their followers in the theocracy as was any limitation placed by England upon those powers which they had endeavored to make absolute. At a meeting of the General Court in October, at which the letter was read, the atrociously brutal law against the Quakers was immediately put in force again, and the only compliances with the King&#8217;s requirements were the order that legal processes should run in his name, and the issuing of directions that his letter be published. Other action toward complying with its terms was postponed until the next meeting of the Court. At that meeting, seven months later, the letter was merely referred to a committee, which was to report again at the next meeting, five months later still; at which, again, nothing was done. It was the old policy, advised by the clergy nearly thirty years earlier, of &#8220;avoid or protract,&#8221; of ignoring and obstructing. However such a policy might fit an emergency under peculiar conditions, it obviously could not form the basis of permanent relations between organic parts of an empire.

Trouble also arose for the colony from another direction. It was impossible, in ordinary justice, that England should ignore the complaints of the heirs of the original Gorges and Mason regarding the illegal encroachments of Massachusetts upon the lands claimed by them. Mason&#8217;s petition was referred to a committee of seven. Of these Mason was one, although obviously the English government should not have permitted him to be at once plaintiff and judge. But, aside from irrelevant strictures upon the policy of Massachusetts, the committee made a reasonable report, finding that Mason had inherited a good title from his grandfather, and that for many years Massachusetts had publicly recognized the line three miles north of the Merrimac as her true boundary.

Meanwhile, Gorges, who had petitioned the King in April, 1661, for possession of his province, did not wait for the process of law, but appointed commissioners to go to Maine, proclaim the King, collect the quit-rents, and establish a government, notifying Massachusetts of their actions. That colony promptly ordered that all the inhabitants should yield obedience only to herself and sent commissioners into the province with instructions to suppress any disobedience by the use of force, as they should see fit. Under this conflict of authorities, the affairs of Maine, the inhabitants of which province were scattered and somewhat unruly, were bound to drift into anarchy. Daniel Gookin, of Boston, wrote a conciliatory letter to Gorges, explaining the conditions from the standpoint of the good of the people; but, a year later, the King, upon a report of the technical legal aspects of the case, and apparently taking into consideration the losses of Gorges&#8217;s royalist grandfather, ordered the inhabitants to submit to Gorges, or to give reasons to the contrary without delay.

The conditions in New England, in 1663, thus clearly necessitated the sending out of a Royal Commission. The legal disputes between Massachusetts and the English heirs of Gorges and Mason could not fairly be left to the decision of Massachusetts courts. Nor was the question one of technical legal title alone; for, as the committee reporting on the Mason claims had themselves pointed out, &#8220;publique interest and goverment&#8221; were &#8220;much intermixt and concerned with the private interest of the petitioners.&#8221; Moreover, for nearly thirty years, not only had boundary disputes between all the New England colonies been growing steadily more complicated and serious, but the colonies had proved themselves incapable, in practically every case, of settling them permanently and amicably. The contests could evidently be determined, in the absence of any superior power, only by the use of force by the claimants; and with the consistent attitude of Massachusetts and the now rapidly increasing aggressiveness of Connecticut, peace was seriously imperiled, and the fate of the smaller colonies practically sealed. Rhode Island, at once the most loyal and the most devoted to liberty of thought and action, was already in imminent danger of annihilation. In the disputed Narragansett country, the Atherton Company claimed rights which could not be justly adjudicated by any of the three colonies pretending jurisdiction, and prayed the King for intervention. The accounts of practically every observer agreed as to the disloyalty of Massachusetts and her assumption of sovereignty, which were obviously confirmed by her official acts. In addition, the attitude of all the colonies to the English leaders during the Revolution, the neglect of all, except Rhode Island, promptly to proclaim the King, their protection of the regicide judges, and the refusal to observe the Navigation Acts, raised suspicions against them all. There was, besides, the religious discrimination by Massachusetts, depriving her citizens of rights which they would otherwise have enjoyed as Englishmen, and the cases of alleged injustice in colonial courts affecting English citizens with property rights in the colonies. In the absence of a royal governor, or any other means by which the home government could secure first-hand information, there was no course to follow except to appoint a Commission to go out and secure it, if the exceedingly complicated situation was to be handled intelligently. The government had shown itself more than willing to treat with the colonies through their agents; but Massachusetts purposely denied to them any authority, so as to obstruct and delay any action&#8212;an outworn policy which had now become transparently clear to the home government.

The attitude of Massachusetts was, in fact, the crux of the whole problem. The theocratical party there had developed a theory,&#8212;based apparently upon an extension of the church-covenant idea through the plantation covenant,&#8212;that the charter itself was a covenant which reserved no rights to the king and imperial government save those specifically mentioned. From this she deduced that her obligation to the Empire was so tenuous as to be virtually non-existent. However satisfactorily to themselves the leaders and their followers might spin such theories, they did not agree with either the economic, political, or legal facts. At this stage, the economic welfare of the New England colonies was, of necessity, bound up with that of the Empire, from the trade of which they would be excluded if they ceased to be parts of it. Politically, they had to be considered as either in it or out of it, and, obviously, from the standpoint of abstract justice as well as of practical administration, they could not consider themselves as now one and now the other, according to their local interests at a given moment.

Nor could it be conceded that, by the granting of the charters, England had relinquished all rights of control, or the power to determine whether or not their terms were being complied with. That would have opened the way to the grossest misuse of power by any of the local administrations thus created, and would have been against public policy. Moreover, in practically every charter, including that of Massachusetts, the clause had appeared that no laws should be passed repugnant to those of England. Massachusetts had already passed many such, carrying with them, in some cases, the penalty of capital punishment. The clause obviously implied that there must be an authority somewhere, which could decide whether the colonial laws were repugnant or not; and it could hardly be claimed that the colonial courts which passed them were intended to be the sole judges of their conformity. This would have meant that not only the inhabitants of any chartered colony, but the citizens of all the rest of the Empire having relations with it, directly or as potential emigrants, would be absolutely at the mercy of the local government, no matter what that government might do, or however criminally it might disregard the rights that the charters had specifically safeguarded. It must not be lost to sight that the contemporary merchant in England or the West Indies had as legitimate a right to require that England should protect his legal interests in Massachusetts or Connecticut as any citizen of the United States to-day has to expect that his rights will be assured to him in New Mexico or Alaska. It must also be recalled that America was the heritage of the English people, much as our West was the heritage of our citizens; and the Englishman, both for himself and for his children, had as legitimate an interest in the nature of the government erected in any part of the Empire as we have in that set up in any part of our territorial domains. There was little more reason why a group of settlers should preëmpt Massachusetts, pass laws repugnant to those of England, and hang any Englishman whose political or religious views were obnoxious to them, than there would be for the stockholders and officers of a business corporation in Alaska, who might have been granted land and some minor police powers, to do the same thing to-day.

If the contentions of Massachusetts were to be allowed,&#8212;that she might pass any laws she chose and be sole judge of them; that she might trample upon the colonial rights of Englishmen at home, quarrel with her neighbors, determine her own bounds, be the sole interpreter of the terms of her charter, and sole judge of whether they had been complied with; deny that the king&#8217;s writ passed beyond England, or that the home country had any right to pass laws affecting the colonies even in their intercolonial and imperial relations,&#8212;then, it must be confessed, there was no empire. There was merely an imperial anarchy of conflicting local interests and warring elements, whose only common bond was their claim that England should protect them against the aggression of foreign and land-hungry powers.

If the rule of England in the seventeenth century had become tyrannical and oppressive to the extent that revolution had become justifiable, and if the colonies had become strong enough, in the state of the world as it then was, to stand alone, nothing could be said against their openly throwing off the imperial yoke. The full development of the forces already at work was, a century later, to bring about that very consummation, the discussion of which belongs to a later period. That, however, was not the case as yet, and the position which Massachusetts assumed was untenable and could eventually lead only to the loss of her charter, and not to independence. Nor could she profess loyalty in the most obsequious terms, claim all the military and commercial advantages of being a part of the Empire, and, at the same time, act as an independent state. It was a policy which, however unjustifiable, might be successful, perhaps, when essayed by her as the most powerful member in a New England confederacy. It could be neither, when the part was attempted to be played by that same colony in its role of an unimportant dependency in a great empire. Nor had individual liberty anything to gain in the contest. The only possible outcome would be the loss of the charter, with all the possibilities involved in the then immediate dependence upon a Stuart monarch. At this stage, the real struggle for freedom, intellectual and political, was against the theocracy. If its leaders lost the game they were playing, as was practically inevitable, then the liberties of the colony, as embodied in the charter and related to England, would also be lost. If, on the other hand, they should by any chance win against the Crown, then their own power would be greatly strengthened and the struggle against them increased in difficulty. In either event, therefore, the liberal element in the colony had everything to fear from the policy pursued by the leaders. That policy, however, from the standpoint of the latter, found its justification in the fact that the suggested alterations in the franchise, and other religious matters, would end the power of the theocracy, which would surely go down before liberty of opinion. As the leaders had already hesitated at nothing, not even the blood of their victims, to maintain their theory of the church-state, so now they preferred to risk the practically certain loss of the charter and all its civil privileges, rather than yield to the claim of individual freedom. Fortunately, in spite of an apparent temporary success, they were to lose, and England win; and, owing to the people of England itself, the real cause of liberty was eventually to gain.

The chaotic state of New England had engaged the attention of the Council for Plantations and the Privy Council almost from the moment of the Restoration; while the sending of Commissioners to adjust differences, and to report on conditions, had been under consideration since early in 1662. Two years later, action regarding the matters which had been considered as of prime importance was taken at last, and a commission was actually sent to New England; and New Netherland, with little trouble, was wrested from the Dutch. The two objects&#8212;of which the latter was considered the more important&#8212;were closely connected, and the most influential member of the Commission, Colonel Richard Nicolls, was appointed Governor of the new province of New York. Of the other three Commissioners, Samuel Maverick was undoubtedly useful, from his great knowledge of Massachusetts affairs, although otherwise unfitted, from his strong partisanship; but neither Sir Robert Carr nor George Cartwright possessed the qualifications to ensure successful results, although the latter was able and conscientious in his work.

Two series of instructions were issued to the Commissioners for their guidance, the one public and the other confidential, as was also the custom of Massachusetts in sending agents to England. In the first, it was ordered that the Commission should consider the best means for reducing the Dutch, investigate the condition of the Indians and of public education, and see that the Navigation Acts were observed, and that, according to the laws of England, no one was debarred from the free exercise of his religion. In the confidential instructions, these points were repeated with additional details, the Commissioners being further required to examine the various charters and the laws passed; to have, if possible, a General Assembly elected in Massachusetts, in which the members would be favorably inclined toward the King, and to have an acceptable governor and commander of the militia appointed or elected. They were to try to secure the cooperation of the other four colonies, and, in both sets of orders, were instructed to avoid giving offense. The King also wrote a conciliatory letter to each of the colonies, in which he spoke of the calumnies against them, the difficulty of settling boundary disputes among themselves, and other matters requiring investigation and settlement. In the commissions issued to Nicolls and the others, they were empowered to hear complaints and appeals, and to take measures for settling the peace of the country.

In Massachusetts the news of the sending of the Commissioners created considerable alarm, and the General Court passed orders that none of their force of under-officers or soldiers should be allowed to land, except unarmed and in small numbers. The fort on Castle Island was ordered to be manned and prepared, sentries posted, and the charter hidden.

In July, the Commissioners arrived at Boston, and presented their commissions and the King&#8217;s letter to the Court, together with that part of their instructions which related to raising a force against the Dutch. The request was complied with, and the Court also hastily passed a new election law, which ostensibly made the franchise independent of a religious test, but which in practice could have no such effect. According to the new law, all church members, regardless of property qualifications, were given the franchise, as before, but non-church members were required to be freeholders and householders, to present certificates signed by ministers that they were orthodox in belief and not vicious in their lives, to be elected as freemen by the General Court, and to possess an estate which paid a tax of ten shillings in a single levy. There were other requirements, also; but the fact that not one man in a hundred was said to have the property qualification required only from non-church members showed the farcical nature of the law. The enactment has sometimes been called &#8221;shrewd&#8221;; but, in reality, it deceived no one, least of all the Commissioners, and its obvious disingenuousness served only to prejudice the case of the colony still further. Yet, in writing to the King, the colonial government stated that, in passing this law, they had applied themselves &#8220;to the utmost to sattisfy&#8221; him in &#8220;so farr as cloth consist with conscience of our duty towards God, and the just liberties and priviledges&#8221; of their patent.

Nor was the character of the rest of the petition, or of the letters which they wrote, asking aid, to Boyle, the head of the Society for Propagating the Gospel, and to Lord Clarendon, of a sort likely to improve the opinion held regarding the colony. It was obviously impossible to comply with their request to withdraw the Commission. In a just and temperate reply, the King pointed out that investigation by such a body had been the only method left to the English government to inform itself as to conditions in the colonies. Nor did Boyle take any different view of the matter; and Clarendon wrote of the petition: &#8220;I am so much a friend to your colony, that if it had been communicated to nobody but myself, I should have disswaded the presenting the same to his Majesty&#8221;; and pointed out the impossible character of the complaints and demands.

The double nature of the Commissioners&#8217; duties now served to interrupt their work in Massachusetts; and until the beginning of the following year, they were occupied at New Amsterdam, and on the Delaware, in settling matters in the conquered Dutch colony&#8212;among others, the adjustment of its boundary with Connecticut. The case of the boundary between that colony and Rhode Island also came up; and although the final disposition was left for the home government, it was settled, in so far as the colonies were concerned, by erecting the disputed territory into a separate province, to be known as the King&#8217;s Province. The jurisdiction wasgiven to Rhode Island, while the claims of Massachusetts and the Atherton Land Company were properly declared invalid.

Throughout their dealings with Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Plymouth, the Commissioners had met with little or no opposition; and it was only upon their reassembling at Boston, about the first of May, 1665, that the real struggle began. Endicott had recently died, and Bellingham had been elected governor. The negotiations between the new government and the Commissioners, however, were entered upon with some bad feeling upon both sides. The Commissioners had previously asked that all the inhabitants be summoned to attend the Court, in order that the King&#8217;s views might be made known to them directly; but this somewhat impossible plan had been discouraged, if not secretly hindered, by the colonial government, and many false statements regarding the Commission had also been circulated, tending to throw discredit upon them&#8212;all of which they naturally resented.

The Commissioners now made known all of their public instructions, and the Court made answer to their various requests and accusations. In regard to some of the minor matters, such as public education, there was no difficulty; but in regard to the more important ones, except issuing writs in the King&#8217;s name, the colony virtually had no case. The new oath of allegiance, which the Court had had drawn up, had been purposely vitiated by the insertion of a clause referring to the charter, and can be considered only as an attempt to deceive the Commissioners and the home government, which it failed to do. As to ecclesiastical matters, the Court stated merely that they followed &#8220;the word of the Lord,&#8221; which, as they denied any interpretation of that word except their own, meant that they followed their own opinions, and refused to allow any one else to have any. Their statement, in a later paper, that &#8220;the authority here have not imposed upon church or people any one particular forme or order, for the restreijning or limiting them in the exercise of their devotions towards God,&#8221; and their reference to &#8220;the great freedome&#8221; in religious matters, is startling in its distortion of the truth, in view of the laws then on their statute-books, and of their consistent course of persecution, from the Brownes in 1628 to the last Quaker hung in 1660. In response to another request of the English government, at this very time, they flatly denied permission to any law-abiding citizen to use his prayer-book, on the ground that &#8220;it will disturbe our peace in our present enjoyments.&#8221; Referring to the Navigation Acts, they could make no better defense than to say that they were not conscious that they had &#8220;greatly violated the same,&#8221; and that any laws apparently against them had been repealed.

It is needless to follow the details of the controversy, which culminated in the struggle over the question of appeals. These had already been heard in Rhode Island by the Commissioners, under the authority of somewhat conflicting clauses in their instructions and commissions; and it was now undertaken to hear two in Boston. One of them concerned an individual, who seems to have been of a worthless sort, and the other, a violation of the Navigation Act. The General Court refused to allow the proceedings, claimed a breach of the charter, and officially warned all citizens not to attend the hearings, which were never held, as the Commissioners had no force to uphold their authority, even had they cared to employ it. Soon after this, the Commission left Boston, both the colony and the king&#8217;s officers making long reports to the government in England.

The whole contest had now obviously reached the fundamental point of sovereignty, which was clearly stated in a letter to Massachusetts, a few weeks later, from Carr, Cartwright, and Maverick, who were then in New Hampshire. &#8220;The king did not grant away his Soveraigntie over you,&#8221; they wrote, &#8220;when he made you a Corporation. When His Majesty gave you power to make wholesome laws and to administer justice by them, he parted not with his right of judging whether those laws were wholesom or whether justice was administered accordingly or no. When His Majesty gave you authority over such of his subjects as lived within the limits of your jurisdiction, he made them not your subjects nor you their supream authority.&#8221; Unpalatable as these words may have been to the Massachusetts Court, there can be no doubt that they expressed the truth, as did also the Commissioners&#8217; warning that &#8220;striveing to grasp too much, may make you hold but a little.&#8221; The future was clearly fore-shadowed. &#8220;&#8217;T is possible that the Charter which you so much idolize may be forfeited,&#8221; the Commissioners added, &#8220;until you have cleared yourselves of those many injustices, oppressions, violences, and blood for which you are complained against, to which complaints you have refused to answer.&#8221; There was, indeed, to be no other course. If Massachusetts under her charter should persist in considering herself superior to the power which had granted it, that power would have no option but to recognize her complete independence or to annul the charter.

In New Hampshire, the acts of the three Commissioners were ill-judged and but little likely to reflect credit upon the king, or to secure the adherence of the people, while Massachusetts by prompt and forceful measures asserted her claims in the face of the royal agents. In Maine, the latter attempted to organize a temporary government, pending the settlement of the dispute between Massachusetts and Gorges, and they likewise endeavored, even more unsuccessfully, to set up administrative machinery in the territory east of Pemaquid, which had been granted to the Duke of York. Within less than three years, Massachusetts, assisted by the desire of the inhabitants for a settled government, had once more taken the province under her jurisdiction, although not without local opposition.

In what had been considered their most important work, the reduction of the Dutch and the establishment of the English authority at New York, the Commissioners had been entirely successful, as they had been also in their relations with the three southern colonies in New England; and the settlement of the dispute between Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the Atherton Company was of great benefit to the colonies. In the matter of Massachusetts, however, they had completely failed. Three of them advised taking away the charter, while Maverick made several suggestions, including the prohibiting of trade with the recalcitrant colony, as did Nicolls also.

In 1666, the King sent a circular letter to the various colonies, expressing satisfaction with all except Massachusetts, whose claim of independent sovereignty, he noted, was &#8220;a matter of such high consequence as every man discerns where it must end&#8221;; and he commanded the colony to send four or five agents to England, including Bellingham and Hathorne, to answer the charges against her. This the Court flatly refused to do, and so notified the King, though they sent him their prayers for his eternal happiness. Their refusal, however, by no means met with unanimous approval among the influential elements in the colony. A petition was presented to the Court, signed by a hundred and seventy-one individuals, including such names as Winslow, Brattle, Gerrish, Hale, Coffin, Perkins, Hubbard, and others of note in Boston, Salem, Newbury, and Ipswich, while most of the people of Hingham were said to have signed also, although their deputy refused to deliver their petition. The signers pleaded that nothing further be done justly to offend the home government, and that the agents asked for be sent. They pointed out that &#8220;the doubtful interpretation of the words of a patent, which there can be no reason should ever be construed to the divesting of a sovereign prince of his royall power over his naturall subjects and liege people, is too frail a foundation to build such a transcendent immunity and privilege upon.&#8221;

But those attempting to maintain the power of the theocracy would not be turned from their course, though by it they made the eventual loss of the charter both necessary and certain. Owing to the fact that England was now at war with both Holland and France, neither time nor thought could be given to a rebellious colony, and Massachusetts was to be allowed to go her way for another decade. Her own rulers, however, had definitely determined what her fate should be when the authorities in England should once more be free to act. In a little more than that period, she was to find herself, without a charter and without a friend, defenseless before the last of the Stuarts; and it was only the final revolt of the people of England against that dynasty which was to save her from the full effects of the policy of her theocracy, and to secure to all her citizens the same measure of political equality that was enjoyed by their neighbors.