erick fixed his home at New York, where the Duke of York gave him a house "in the Broad Way." Cartwright went to England, in a fury of displeasure, with the Report of the Commissioners, and a mass of documents for its illustration. He was taken at sea by a Dutch cruiser, and stripped of all his effects, including his papers; and, while copies were awaited, the indignation which he labored to stimulate had time to cool, the minister he had served was falling from power, and the coming war with France had a paramount claim on the thoughts of men in office.1

The apprehensions which the General Court had expressed of being unfavorably represented to the King had all along been well founded. But the Reports which, in every stage of their proceedings with Massachusetts, the Commissioners had been sending home, while they expressed the ill-humor of the writers, at the same time betrayed their impotence. Under whatever disadvantages pursued, the quarrel could not yet in England be abandoned with dignity; and a resolution was taken to carry it on by another method. The King, by Secretary Morrice, wrote to Massachusetts, that he had atApril 10. tended to the statements submitted to him by both parties; and it was "very evident" to him "that those who governed the Colony of the Massachusetts did, upon the matter, believe that his Majesty had no jurisdiction over them, but that all persons must acquiesce in their judgments and determinations, how unjust soever, and could not appeal to his Majesty."

1666.

carriage to one of his Majesty's of ficers, one of the constables of the town." (Hutch. Coll., 411.) But how Carr's case was disposed of, I have not learned.

1 Nicolls remained but a short time in his government of New York. He went home in 1668, and resumed his place in the Duke's household. He

was killed, May 28th, 1672, in the naval engagement at Solebay, and his remains lie under the chancel of the church of Ampthill, in Bedfordshire.— Miss Caulkins says (History of New London, 41) that he gave Fisher's Island to Winthrop (see above, p. 234, note).

Demand for

agents to be

land.

He accordingly had resolved to recall his Commissioners to make their report in person, at the same time giving express command and charge, that the Governor and Council of the Massachusetts should forthwith make. choice of five or four persons to attend upon his Majesty, whereof Mr. Richard Bellingham and Major Hathorne were to be two, both which sent to Enghis Majesty commanded upon their allegiance to attend," the other three or two to be "such as the Council should make choice of."1 Orders were added for the liberation of all persons "imprisoned only for petitioning or applying themselves to his Majesty's Commissioners," and for the continuance of the government of Maine, and of the boundaries of the several Colonies, as the Commissioners had established them, "until his Majesty should further determine."2

May 23.

The next General Court gave diligent attention to the preparation of military defences; but its record contains no notice of the demands in the King's letter. Possibly it may not have been received so early. When, after more than three months, the Court met again, its first action was to order" that

8

"If," wrote Lord Clarendon to Nicolls, April 13, 1666, "they do not give obedience to it [this command to send agents] we shall give them cause to repent it; for his Majesty will not sit down by the affronts which he hath received."

The letter is printed by Hutchinson (Hist., I. 466). It bears the same date as the laudatory letters addressed to Plymouth, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. (See above, p. 606, note 1.)

Mass. Rec., IV. (ii.) 294-312. * Maverick had in the previous month been again in Boston, where he was again charged with business from England. August 6, 1666, he received duplicate letters from Sir William Mor

Sept. 11.

rice, which, agreeably to his orders, he took to the Governor (Bellingham), "and required him, in his Majesty's name, immediately to convoke the Council. . . . . . It was six weeks ere they were assembled"; and, "shortly after, in a General Court, it was voted that the persons sent for should not go." (Letter of Maverick to Lord Arlington, August 25, 1668, in the State Paper Office.) It was doubtless of an interview with Bellingham on this occasion that Maverick wrote to Governor Prince, of Plymouth, August 11, 1666: "My discourse this morning with the Governor, I fear, took off his stomach for breakfast, and my discourse next week with him and his Coun

some of the reverend elders, that were or might be in town, should be desired to be present with the General Court on the morrow morning, and to begin the Court, and spend the forenoon in prayer." The guides of the public action and the instructors of the public conscience met together accordingly, and prayed and consulted. And the issue of the whole was a letter, prepared by a committee, of which Willoughby was chairman, and addressed to Secretary Morrice by the General Court. It replied at length to a proposal for an invasion of New France, and then proceeded as follows:

"We may not omit to acquaint your Honor that a writing was delivered to the Governor and Magistrates by Mr. Samuel Maverick, the 6th September, without direction or seal, which he saith is a copy of a signification from his Majesty of his pleasure concerning this Colony of the Massachusetts, the certainty whereof seems not to be so clear unto us as former expresses from his Majesty have usually been.

"We have in all humility given our reasons why we could not submit to the Commissioners and their mandates the last year, which we understand lie before his Majesty; to the substance whereof we have not to add, and therefore cannot expect that the ablest persons among us could be in a capacity to declare our cause more fully.

"We must, therefore, commit this our great concernment unto Almighty God, praying and hoping that his Majesty (a prince of so great clemency) will consider the state and condition of his poor and afflicted subjects at such a time, being in imminent danger by the public enemies of our nation, and that in a wilderness far remote from relief."1

cil may put him in the same distemper." (Letter of Maverick, in the collection of "Winslow Papers" be

longing to the Massachusetts Historical Society.)

1 Mass. Rec.. IV. (ii.) 317.

This conclusion was not reached with entire unanimity. Two of the Magistrates, Denison and Bradstreet, would have been more compliant. And the sordid and short-sighted timidity of commercial politics interposed; for already there was commercial prosperity enough to conflict with the ancient strictness of public morality. Petitions came in from the four principal commercial towns, praying for a submission to the royal demand,— the petition from Boston having twenty-six signatures, and those from Salem, Newbury, and Ipswich being subscribed with thirty-three, thirty-nine, and seventy-three names respectively. The Court observed these documents to be "for substance but one;1 and, finding that the petitioners did therein unjustly charge, threaten, and reflect upon the Court, to the dishonor of the members thereof, they ordered four of the signers from Boston, and one from each of the other towns, to appear at the next Court, and answer for the same." But the matter does not appear to have been further pursued.2 Mav

1 "To the same purpose, and same words." (Mass. Hist. Coll., XXVIII. 105.)

Mass. Rec., IV. (ii.) 314-318; comp. Mass. Hist. Coll., XXI. 59. An account of the proceedings preliminary to the final action of the Court is preserved in the "Danforth Papers" (Mass. Hist. Coll., XVIII. 98 - 101). "12. 7mo. 1666. The Court met, and sundry elders, and spent the forenoon in prayer. These prayed: Mr. Wilson, Mr. Mather, Mr. Symmes, Mr. Whiting, Mr. Corbitt, Mr. Mitchell." On the second day after, the petitions from the ports were presented, and a full debate took place. The names of the speakers are preserved in the manuscript only by the initial letters; and the editor of the Danforth Papers has generally interpreted these correctly. By "D.," however, he has understood "Dudley" to

be denoted, when he should have supplied Denison. Joseph Dudley (afterwards so conspicuous) was now only a year out of College; and his elder brother, Thomas, who had not been a Magistrate, had lately died. - Bradstreet (who had hardly got over his fright in England) maintained, with Denison, the side of prerogative. Bellingham, Willoughby, Symonds, and Hathorne stood stiffly for the chartered rights. They expressed the common sentiment, which did not require to be further urged by Danforth, Leverett, and the others like-minded. Willoughby spoke to the purpose when he said: "We must as well consider God's displeasure as the King's, the interest of ourselves and God's things as his Majesty's prerogative; for our liberties are of concernment, and to be regarded as to the preservation; for, if the King may send for me now, and

erick came from New York with a letter signed by Nicolls, Carr, and himself, protesting against this Nov. 3. last contumacious action of the Court, and soliciting a reconsideration, and was answered by the Magistrates that what they had to say upon the Nov. 13. subject had already been communicated to Sir