Disturbance

A dispute, local in its origin, and apparently of slight importance for a time, but finally engaging at once the military, the religious, and the civil authorities of the Colony, was bequeathed by Endicott to his successor. The train-band of the town of Hingham, havat Hingham. ing chosen Anthony Eames to be their captain, "presented him to the standing Council for allowance." While the business was in this stage, the soldiers altered their minds, and in a second election gave the place to Bozoun Allen. The Magistrates, thinking that an injustice and affront had been offered to Eames, determined that the former election should be held valid, "until the Court should take further order." The company would not obey their captain, and mutinied. He was summoned before the church of his town, under a charge of having made misrepresentations to the Magistrates. went to Boston, and laid his case before them. They "sent warrant to the constable to attach some of the principal offenders [Peter Hobart, minister of Hingham, being one] to appear before them at Boston, to find sureties for their appearance at the next Court." Hobart

of the Earl of Manchester's life-guard. These did good service, and were well approved." (Ibid., 245.)

In the year of Dudley's government, the General Court had occasion to deal with a kidnapper of negroes in Africa. The matter was brought before the Court in October by a petition from Mr. Saltonstall. (Mass. Rec., III. 46; comp. Winthrop, II. 462.) In a slaveship, of which one James Smith was master (Winthrop, II. 243, 244 ; comp. 219), two negroes-whom he had seized, with others, in an attack upon a village in Guinea on a Sabbath-day

had been brought to Boston. One of them had been sold to a person living on the Piscataqua, and thither the Court sent for him. (Mass. Rec., III. 49.) When he had been recovered,

He

they thus disposed of the business. "The General Court, conceiving themselves bound by the first opportunity to bear witness against the heinous and crying sin of man-stealing, as also to prescribe such timely redress for what is past, and such a law for the future, as may sufficiently deter all others belonging to us to have to do in such vile and odious courses, justly abhorred of all good and just men, do order that the negro interpreter, with others unlawfully taken, be, by the first opportunity, at the charge of the country for the present, sent to his native country of Guinea, and a letter of the indignation of the Court thereabouts, and justice thereof. The prosecution of this order is left to the care of our honored Governor." (Ibid., 84.)

came and remonstrated so intemperately, that "some of the Magistrates told him, that, were it not for respect for his ministry, they would commit him." Two of those arraigned with him refused to give bonds, and Winthrop sent them to gaol.

May 14.

So the affair stood at the time of Dudley's accession. Hobart and some eighty of his friends petitioned for a hearing before the General Court upon the lawfulness of their committal "by some of the Magistrates, for words spoken concerning the power of the General Court, and their liberties, and the liberties of the Church." The Deputies, on their part, complied with the request, and sent a vote accordingly to the Magistrates, for their concurrence. The Magistrates "returned answer, that they were willing the cause should be heard, so as the petitioners would name the Magistrates whom they intended, and the matters they would lay to their charge, &c. . . . . . The petitioners' agents, who were then Deputies of the Court, . . . . . thereupon singled out the Deputy-Governor, and two of the petitioners Complaint undertook the prosecution." The Magistrates against were loath to sanction so irregular a proceeding;

....

but Winthrop desired to make his vindication, and the petitioners were permitted to have their way.

"The day appointed being come, the Court assembled in the meeting-house at Boston. Divers of the Elders were present, and a great assembly of people. The Deputy-Governor, coming in with the rest of the Magistrates, placed himself beneath within the bar, and so sat uncovered." At this "many both of the Court and the assembly were grieved." But he said that he had taken what was the fit place for an accused person, and that, "if he were upon the bench, it would be a great disadvantage to him, for he could not take that liberty to plead the cause which he ought to be allowed at the bar."

In the full argument which followed, "the Deputy justified all the particulars laid to his charge; as that, upon credible information of such a mutinous practice, and open disturbance of the peace and slighting of authority, the offenders were sent for, the principal by warrant to the constable to bring them, and others by summons, and that some were bound over to the next Court of Assistants, and others, that refused to be bound, were committed; and all this according to the equity of laws here established, and the custom and laws of England, and our constant practice these fifteen years."

At first, "two of the Magistrates [no doubt, Bellingham and Saltonstall], and many of the Deputies, were of opinion that the Magistrates exercised too much power, and that the people's liberty was thereby in danger; and other of the Deputies (being about half), and all the rest of the Magistrates, were of a different judgment, and that authority was overmuch slighted, which, if not timely remedied, would endanger the commonwealth, and bring us to a mere democracy." The matter was under debate for more than seven weeks, with only one week's intermission. The Deputies, "not attaining to any issue, sent up to the Magistrates to have their thoughts about it." The Magistrates replied, that their thoughts were,-"1. That the petition was false and scandalous; 2. That those that were bound over, &c., and others that were parties to the disturbance at Hingham, were all offenders, though in different degrees; 3. That they and the petitioners were to be censured; 4. That the Deputy-Governor ought to be acquit and righted." The Deputies were ready to assent to all these propositions, except the third. But the Magistrates (Winthrop always retiring when these questions came up) "were resolved for censure, and for the Deputy's full acquittal." They proposed to advise with the Elders; but the malecontents knew that from the Elders they could hope for no favor, and they refused.

At length the matter was adjusted by an agreement on all hands for a complete acquittal of the Deputy- His acquittal. Governor, and the punishment of all the petition- July 3. ers by fines, the largest of which was twenty pounds, and that of the minister two pounds.

"According to this agreement, presently after the lecture the Magistrates and Deputies took their places in the meeting-house; and, the people being come together, and the Deputy-Governor placing himself within the bar, as at the time of the hearing, &c., the Governor read the sentence of the Court, without speaking any more; for the Deputies had (by importunity) obtained a promise of silence from the Magistrates. Then was the DeputyGovernor desired by the Court to go up and take his place again upon the bench, which he did accordingly, and, the Court being about to arise, he desired leave for a little speech."

His vindica

self.

He spoke in terms befitting his magnanimous wisdom. While he "blessed God that he saw an issue of this troublesome business," he said he had no tion of himdesire to review it. He was "well satisfied to have been publicly charged, and publicly and legally acquitted;" but, though this was "sufficient for his justification before men," it would not dispense him from being humble before God. Proceeding to speak to "the great questions that had troubled the country about the authority of the Magistrates and the liberty of the people," he described the responsibility of those who are called to rule, the principles of a right and reasonable criticism of their conduct, and the nature of that liberty which is not ruinous license. "It is yourselves," he said, "who have called us to this office; and ..... the covenant between you and us is the oath you have taken of us, which is to this purpose, that we shall govern you and judge your causes by the rules of God's laws and our own, according to our best skill." The liberty which he qualified as

civil, federal, or moral, “is," he said, "the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest. This liberty you are to stand for, with the hazard not only of your goods, but of your lives, if need be. Whatsoever crosseth this, is not authority, but a distemper thereof." And he concluded: "If you stand for your natural corrupt liberties, and will do what is good in your own eyes, you will not endure the least weight of authority, but will murmur, and oppose, and be always striving to shake off that yoke; but, if you will be satisfied to enjoy such civil and lawful liberties, such as Christ allows you, then will you quietly and cheerfully submit unto that authority which is set over you, in all the administrations of it, for your good. Wherein if we fail at any time, we hope we shall be willing (by God's assistance) to hearken to good advice from any of you, or in any other way of God; so shall your liberties be preserved, in upholding the honor and power of authority amongst you."

difficulty.

"1

The reader looks for some explanation, more adequate than appears upon the surface, of an excitement so great growing out of so trifling an occasion. To Winthrop's mind the opposition to the Magistrates, which Source of the had now been manifested, appeared to have been prompted by that suspicion of their entertaining ambitious designs, which had caused the attempts to disarm them of the power of defeating by their negative the action of the other branch of the government; of the power of administration during a recess of the General Court; and of the power of dispensing justice without the restraint of a written rule.2 But there was yet another disturbing element, watched, perhaps, by the Magistrates, or by some of them, from the first of the

2

1 Winthrop, II. 221-233; comp. Winthrop, II. 230, 231; comp. Vol. Mass. Rec., II. 97, 113, 114; III. 12, I. 442, 621; II. 158.

17-26.