had their cogent reasons for being resigned to the new order of things; and they had now little anxiety lest it should lead to insurrection.1

1685.

Several months passed after the fatal decree, before intelligence of it was transmitted in any way. In midwinter a vessel arrived bringing "general rumors" of it; and the Governor convened the Court. They January 28. appointed a fast-day, and once more tried their accustomed fruitless method of pacifying the King by an Address. In this, which, like its predecessors, was sent to Mr. Humphreys for presentation, they again protested that none of their acts had been done "in derogation of the King's prerogative, or to the oppression of his subjects"; and they urged, that they "never had any legal notice for their appearance and making answer in the Court of Chancery; neither was it possible, in the time allotted, that they could." 2

The reader asks how it could be that the decree by which Massachusetts fell should fail to provoke resistance. He inquires whether nothing was left of the spirit, which, when the Colony was much poorer, had so often defied and baffled the designs of the father of the reigning King. He must remember how times were changed. There was no longer a great patriot party in England, to which the Colonists might look for sympathy and help, and which, it had been even hoped, might reinforce them by a new

also fit to be arranged thereunto, together with the Province of Maine, which the Corporation of Massachusetts Bay lately bought of Mr. Gorges, the proprietor." — A similar order was made [November 17] respecting the Narragansett country. (Colonial Papers, &c.; comp. Journals of the Privy Council, for November 22.)

1 In the collection of "Colonial Papers,' &c. is a memorandum of the contents of letters written from Boston to Randolph (then in London) in De

emigration. There was no longer even a Presbyterian party, which, little as it had loved them, a sense of common insecurity and common interest might enlist in their behalf.1 Charles the Second was now an absolute sovereign. For three years there had been no Parliament to call him to account. No man could promise himself that another English Parliament would ever meet. The executions of Russell and Sidney; the severities practised on the multitudes of humbler Englishmen, who scrupled to renounce an Englishman's birthright of free speech and free thought; the high-handed course taken with the boroughs and other corporations, had reduced England

to a dead level of helpless and desperate servitude. Relatively to her population and wealth, Massachusetts had large capacities for becoming a naval power; capacities which might have been vigorously developed, if an alliance with the great naval power of Continental Europe had been possible. But Holland was now at peace with England; not to say that such an arrangement was out of the question for Massachusetts, while the rest of New England was more or less inclined to the adverse interest. Unembarrassed by any foreign war, England was armed with that efficient navy which the Duke of York had organized, and which had lately distressed the rich and energetic Netherlanders; and the dwellings of two thirds

1 Lord Say and Sele had now been dead twenty-two years; and Lord Manchester, fourteen. Lord Hollis had died four years before, being then eighty-two years old, and long retired from business. In 1682, the friendly Lord Anglesey had been deprived of the Privy Seal, ostensibly for a libel on the Duke of Ormond, really for his leaning to liberal principles. (State Trials, VIII. 990 – 1018.) There was no great courtier to befriend or pity Massachusetts, unless we so tonsider Lord Wharton, who was now 34

VOL. III.

the only survivor of the Westminster Assembly.

2 "If a foreign Prince or State should during the present troubles send a frigate to New England, and promise to protect them as under for mer government, it would be an unconquerable temptation." (Narrative of the Miseries of New England, in "Sixth Collection of Fapers relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England," 34. This was written within five years after the time above treated of.)

of the inhabitants of Massachusetts stood where they could be battered from the water. They had a commerce which might be molested on every sea by English cruisers. Neither befriended nor interfered with, they might have been able to defend themselves against the corsairs of Barbary, in the resorts of their most gainful trade; but England had given them notice, that, if they were stubborn, that commerce would be dismissed from her protection, and, in the circumstances, such a notice threatened more than mere abstinence from aid. The Indian war had emptied the colonial exchequer. On the other hand, a generation earlier the Colonists might have retreated to the woods; but now they had valuable stationary property to be kept or sacrificed. To say no more, the ancient unanimity was broken in upon. Jealousies had arisen and grown. Had the Confederation been unimpaired, perhaps the proceedings of a half-century before might have been revived, and a new emigration have been made from the mother country. But the Confederacy was only a shadow of what it had been in the days of the Great Rebellion.

Nor was even public morality altogether of its pristine tone. A prospect of material prosperity had introduced a degree of luxury; and luxury had brought ambition and mean longings. Venality had become possible; and clever and venal men had a motive for enlisting the selfish, blinding the stupid, and decrying the generous and the wise. The most powerful man of New England was in league with her foes. Thirty years before, there would have been no place for such a politician as Joseph Dudley in the social system of Massachusetts. He would have had to do violence to his vicious nature, or to be obscure and unimportant. The time for such practitioners had come.

CHAPTER X.

1677.

WHEN the Province of Maine, having been adjudged in England to be the property of Ferdinando Gorges, was purchased from him by the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay,1 that corporation accordingly became Lord Proprietor in his place. It had come into possession of little but vacant land. During the war with the Indians, Maine had been al most emptied of English settlers.2

The return of peace invited the fugitives back to their homes, and made it fit that a government should be reconstituted. Recurring to the system formerly in force, the General Court of Massachusetts admitted Deputies from towns in Maine, and made provision for the present administration of justice.*

But, when Randolph came from England a third time, bringing notice of the King's extreme displeasure at that purchase of Maine which took it out of his own hands, it was time for Massachusetts to see to the security of her property, if she did not mean to lose it. In doing so, it was impossible for her to overlook the new relation into which she was legally brought to the people formerly dealt with on a footing of com

1 See above, p. 312.

2 Ibid." There was no kind of government attempted upon it after the commencement of the Indian wars, until the year 1679; but the remains of the old government faintly supported the rights of the people, and defended their property against in

vaders." (Sullivan, History of Maine, 384.)

3 Kittery was represented in 1678 (Mass. Rec., V. 184), and Kittery and York in 1679. (Ibid., 211.) 4 Ibid., 187, 226. 5 See above, p. 327.

government

plete equality. From being a part of the Colony, and Institution of as such sharing in the functions of government, a provincial voting for Governor and Magistrates, and sendfor Maine. ing Deputies from its towns to the General Court, Maine was now a subject province, to be administered in such manner as Massachusetts, exercising the prerogatives set forth in the grant to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, should decree. Accordingly, "the Court taking into consideration the necessity of a speedy February 4 establishing a government in the Province of Maine, the honored Council of the jurisdiction. was requested and empowered to take order for settling the said government, and appointing a President, with justices of the peace and other officers, as directed in Mr. Gorges's patent, and to commissionate the same under the seal of the Colony."1

1680.

By virtue of this vote, the Governor and Assistants proceeded to establish and organize a government for Maine. They determined that there should be a Provincial President, to be appointed from year to year by Massachusetts, and a Legislature to meet once a year, and to be composed of two branches. The Upper House, called the Standing Council, was to consist of eight persons, appointed annually by the Governor and Assistants of Massachusetts, and subject to be removed by them. The Standing Council was also the supreme judicature. The other legislative branch was to consist of Deputies from the towns. Under the authority conferred on them by the General Court, the Governor Thomas Dan- and Assistants appointed Thomas Danforth to forth Presi- be President of Maine for the first year. Their June 11. action was approved by the Court at its ses sion which speedily took place; and towards the close of summer, attended by sixty sol

tent of Maine.

August.

1 Mass. Rec., V. 263.

of the Council were not displeased to

2 Ibid., 286. Perhaps the majority have Danforth go into honorable exile.