ދ belonged by treaty to the English or to the French according to the interpretation which should be given to the disputed name Acadie. Nov. 3. as to Nov. 11. The House had no mind to discuss the question with the Governor. It preferred to hold its ground by silence and inaction. The Council, which, if not favoring his plan, desired at all events to have him conciliated by respect, proposed a conference, which the House took the strong and unusual step of refusing. The Council, by a unanimous vote, declared this to be a breach of its privileges. The House yielded so far retract its refusal to go into a conference, but, after it had been held, persisted in its denial of the appropriation required. It made an allowance to the Governor of six hundred pounds, "for the present year," including the five hundred pounds granted to him just after his arrival. This sum the Council voted to be insufficient. The House added a hundred pounds. The Council repeated its vote, but finding that here the Deputies intended to make a stand, they at length advised the Governor to accept the grant.' Represen In considering the differences which throughout the provincial history occasionally, as now, arose between the two branches of the Legislature, the diversity in Differences the constitution of the two bodies should be borne between the in mind. The House of Representatives, coming tatives and directly from the people, most naturally reflected the Council. the popular feeling of the day. The Counsellors, who were commonly men of property and advanced in life, might be supposed to be averse to novel and disturbing measures. Nominated from year to year as they were by - 1 General Court and Council Records. Feb. 16, 1703, "ordered, that a representation be prepared to her Majesty upon the subject of the presents made to Colonel Dudley by the Massachusetts Bay Assembly since his arrival in those parts, and to set forth their neglect of making any settled provision for his salary." (Journal of the Board of Trade.) whom he did nusest any authority from the General Court, ; raceel, nto the eastern country, going as far as to Penpal. T of the native shop he Oct. 27. happy result no better succes». self and J et some representatives suaded to renew their Congratulating the Court, A in the autumn, on this my, he renewed, but with " fixed salaries for him for the restoring of the Hd that, on his late visit fod that the foundation was still good; that a quantity of the materials of the old structure, demolished six years before by the French, was on the spot in a condition to be used again, and that there was abundance of lime close at hand. The Representatives could not be brought to view the proposal with favor. At this time, as well as earlier and later, they insisted that Pemaquid, remote from the vicinity of the settlements, was no fit place for a fort intended to give them security; that its position on the coast was such as to render it incapable of being made tenable against an enemy, except by a heavy outlay; and that in no view would a fortification there be useful to the Province in a degree proportioned to the inevitable cost. They judged that the pertinacity with which the matter was urged by the English government was due, not, as was pretended, to considerations of their interest, but to an exaggerated opinion of the importance of a work at Pemaquid in maintaining an English possession of that territory between the Kennebec and the Penobscot, which 1 Mass. Province Laws, I. 1498. belonged by treaty to the English or to the French accord- ing to the interpretation which should be given to the disputed name Acadie. Nov. 3. as to Nov. 11. The House had no mind to discuss the question with the Governor. It preferred to hold its ground by silence and inaction. The Council, which, if not favoring his plan, desired at all events to have him conciliated by respect, proposed a conference, which the House took the strong and unusual step of refusing. The Council, by a unanimous vote, declared this to be a breach of its privileges. The House yielded so far retract its refusal to go into a conference, but, after it had been held, persisted in its denial of the appropriation required. It made an allowance to the Governor of six hundred pounds, "for the present year," including the five hundred pounds granted to him just after his arrival. This sum the Council voted to be insufficient. The House added a hundred pounds. The Council repeated its vote, but finding that here the Deputies intended to make a stand, they at length advised the Governor to accept the grant.' In considering the differences which throughout the provincial history occasionally, as now, arose between the two branches of the Legislature, the diversity in Differences the Council. the constitution of the two bodies should be borne between the Represenin mind. The House of Representatives, coming tatives and directly from the people, most naturally reflected the popular feeling of the day. The Counsellors, who were commonly men of property and advanced in life, might be supposed to be averse to novel and disturbing measures. Nominated from year to year as they were by 1 General Court and Council Records. Feb. 16, 1703, "ordered, that a representation be prepared to her Majesty upon the subject of the presents made to Colonel Dudley by the Massachusetts Bay Assembly since his arrival in those parts, and to set forth their neglect of making any settled provision for his salary." (Journal of the Board of Trade.) the General Court, and on each nomination subject to be set aside by the Governor, the honor attached to the place made it an object of ambition, and so far disinclined the candidate to incur the displeasure of either of the parties who had it in their gift. In view of the hostilities which were to be apprehended, the House voted to send aid to the neighboring Colonies, with the careful exception of New York, whose alleged cowardly alliance with the Indians and mischievous traffic 1703. Dudley's tion with setts. 1702. with the French had awakened warm displeasure. Nov. 19. But, on a reconsideration of the subject, the exception was withdrawn. The Governor, conceiving that it was time for a Court to sit convened under writs bearMarch 11. ing the name of Queen Anne, dissolved the existing Court, as he had power to do by the charter, though its legal year had not expired; and the parties separated with little mutual satisfaction. The Governor vented his spleen in a letter to the Lords of Trade. Secure, dissatisfac as he supposed, against the exposure of his comMassachu- munications, he wrote: "The figure this government makes is by no means so good as an ordinary Dec. 10. head-borough in the kingdom of England, while they are a very important Province, and have the best harbors and outlets to the sea in all North America. major part of the people by far would rejoice to be annexed, and brought under her Majesty's immediate commission, if her Majesty please so to command. .. The Council being of the people's election, many of the most loyal people and of the best estates are not employed, and those that are so, many of them are Commonwealth's men, and all do so absolutely depend for their station upon the people that they dare not offend them, and so her Majesty has no manner of service from them."2 Colonel Robert Quarry was at that time Judge of Admiralty in New York and 1 Mass. Prov. Rec. 2 British Colonial Papers. The 66 Pennsylvania. He " thought himself obliged to make some remarks upon the government of New 1703. England" to the Lords of Trade. Colonel June 16. Dudley," he wrote, "hath been forced already to dissolve two Assemblies, nor will the third any ways answer his expectation. They say that he hath given several instances of his remembering the old quarrel, and they resolve on their parts never to forget it; so that it is generally believed he will never gain any point from them. Quarry thought that, towards a correction of a dangerous restlessness, nothing would "so effectually answer as reducing all the Provinces on the main of America to one standard rule and constitution of government."1 Having had his former knowledge revived of the intractableness of Massachusetts legislatures, the Governor prepared a less supercilious reception for the new Court. He congratulated them in courteous terms on their freedom. hitherto from those inroads of French and Indians which there had been so much reason to dread, and he renewed his application for the construction of the fort at Pemaquid as a judicious measure of precaution. But on that point the Deputies were immovable. The time had come for the confident Governor to assert himself by more than language. Giving effect to the provision in the charter that the nomination of Counsellors by the two Houses should be subject to the Governor's approval, Sir William Phips had set aside the election of Cooke, who had opposed him in England when the new charter was in progress. In no other instance as yet had this invidious power of the King's representative been exerted. When the first list of Counsellors chosen after his coming to the government was presented, Dudley "sent for Mr. Speaker and the House tion of forthwith to attend him in the Council Chamber," lors. and told them" he took notice that there were 1 Mass. Hist. Col., XXVII. 230. Counsel May 27. |