Henry Ashurst, one of them signed by some twenty members of the House. When the first direct action was had on the Governor's case," about forty-five members, more than two to one of the House, voted that they could not clear him.” In a second trial, he fared no better. "The Governor's friends were now at their wits' ends, and in humble wise besought the House that they would confine their vote unto the particular trade of Vetch, Borland, and Lawson [thus avoiding the question of his connection with Rouse, which was thought to be more certainly made out]; and it was urged that Borland and Lawson had cleared the Governor. . . . . Hereupon the flexible honest men, perfectly worried and wearied out of their lives by three weeks' altercations, did so many go over, as to make a sort of a vote of it." Appliances in which Dudley was skilful were said to have assisted the operation. "Besides the caresses of the table, which are enough to dazzle an honest countryman, who thinks every man means what he speaks, the influence which preferments and commissions have upon little men is inexpressible. It must needs be a mortal sin to disoblige a Governor that has enabled a man to command a whole country town, and to strut among his neighbors with the illustrious titles of our Major, the Captain, or his Worship. Such magnificent grandeurs make many to stagger egregiously!"

Finally, the misconduct of the discomfited expedition against Port Royal is alleged as special matter of reproach. It is said that that post might have been easily carried at the beginning of the war, but that Dudley could not be persuaded to authorize a movement against it; and that afterwards, when Church was despatched to the eastern country, he "not only had the taking of the fort left out of his orders, but was positively forbidden to meddle with it." The disappointments and disgrace which followed are elaborately laid to the Governor's charge; and the conclusion is, "Under his admirable conduct an impover

ished country has, as we are credibly informed, been put to above two-and-twenty thousand pounds' charge, only to be laughed at by their enemies and pitied by their friends."

Contrary to the expectation of both friend and foe,' Dudley succeeded in some way to evade or allay the storm which had been raised against him. No presumption in his favor in this controversy arises from his general character. He was certainly not a man whom conscientious scruples alone would restrain from shameful conduct. But in respect to a crime, needing, if really committed, to be covered up with all sorts of disguises, it is not unlikely that the justly strong feeling of dislike to Dudley dictated suspicions of more than was true. From some of the

1 "The Deplorable State of New England," though published in London, bears indications of having been written in Massachusetts. There is throughout the tract a constant effort to intimate the contrary, which awakens more than suspicion. An intimate acquaintance is disclosed with transactions in the Province, while 66 we hear," ""we likewise hear," are expressions used in respect to them with needless repetition, as if for a blind. "You will do well to resolve that you will never sign addresses of this nature till you have had opportunity in some Convention, if you have such things, for we are strangers to your methods." (Deplorable State, 2, 29.) I doubt very little that Cotton Mather was more or less concerned in the composition. It has no little of his smartness and pedantry in its style. If you'll permit such as are no clergymen to address you with stories out of old councils, we could tell you that the First Council of Orleans, A. D. 52, made a strange decree," &c. (Ibid.) The spite against Leverett is suggestive of his unsuccessful and mortified rival.

"It is reported by some now in London . . . . . that Dudley has made that Tory lawyer to be President of their College. No question but the lawyer will bring up hopeful young divines, to be sent hither for my Lord of London to ordain them. We hear that they have sung the Gloria Patri in their College hall already, and that several of their clergy stood up at it. An auspicious beginning under their lawyer President, who, we also hear, was chosen a lieutenant of their artillery company at Boston, the last sumSuch reports as these make their friends here think that the people in New England are running mad." (24, 25, 29.)

mer.

crimes alleged, his prudence would have been likely to deter him. It is plausibly argued by Governor Hutchinson that, if his connection with the shipment of goods to be sold to the French by Rouse and others had amounted to any thing more than connivance, the accomplices would scarcely have failed to denounce him when he approved those Acts of the General Court which condemned them to imprisonment and fines.1 Yet his inclination to protect Rouse is suspicious; and so strong was the persuasion of his criminality and of his cunning, that there were those who believed it to have been by his management that the business had been submitted to the General Court, so as to keep it from the cognizance of the common-law courts, where the investigation would have been conducted with more method and vigor, and the verdict would have been more decisive.

1 Hutch. Hist., II. 162.

CHAPTER X.

Dudley

Mathers.

Ir has been told above, that, hostile as the Mathers had been to Dudley at the time of the Revolution, his arts and assiduities had won them over, and he was not without obligation to their good offices at court for his appointment to be Governor of Massachusetts. It was impossible, however, that the friendship thus concerted should be and the lasting. Neither party could be content with any thing short of absolute control within its own province, yet neither could consent to refrain from interference with the province of the other. Personal considerations belonging to the settlement of the new charter united with motives of public spirit to incline the Mathers to a popular interpretation of that instrument, to which the arbitrary biases of Dudley were constantly opposed. The consequence and power of the former materially depended on the stability of the primitive ecclesiastical constitutions of New England. Dudley, in his ten years of English life, had probably passed for a member of the Established Church. After his return to Massachusetts, his relations with the small circle of adherents to it in Boston had at least been amicable, and his friendships with Congregation

1 There was still some shyness between the Dudley family and Cotton Mather. (Magnalia, II. 16.) But the Governor, on coming to Boston, paid him an early visit (June 16, 1702). "Mr Dudley hath been with the young Pope, who hath absolved him of whatever hath been amiss, so that now he is a very good man." (Letter to John Usher, in British Colonial Papers.) Mather availed himself of

the interview to offer advice, which the Governor is not unlikely to have thought officious, against his coming under the influence of Mr. Byfield and Mr. Leverett. "The wretch went unto these men, and told them that I had advised him to be no ways advised by them, and inflamed them into an implacable rage against me." (Extract from Mather's Diary, in Mass. Hist. Col., III. 137.)

alists were with those leading men among them,—such as Colman, Leverett, and the Brattles, who of late years had abandoned the ancient strictness. The unfriendliness which had thus grown up on the part of the ex- Harvard President and his son against the Governor proved College. of excellent service to the College in bringing about its re-establishment on the ancient basis.

2

1686.

1688.

It was understood on all hands that, since the abrogation of the Colonial charter, the College had been defunct in law.1 Dudley, during the short term of his rule. as President of the Colonial Council, made provisional arrangements for carrying on the institution, which Andros, during his government, did not disturb, further than to offer the affront of placing an Episcopal clergyman in the pulpit with the presiding academical dignitary on the day of the annual Commencement. Increase Mather, when in England on the business of the Colony, addressed himself successively to King James and to King William for favor to the College, but without result.1 The legislative proceedings had with reference to the institution during the administrations of Phips, Stoughton, and Bellomont have been related in a former chapter.5

3

After Mather's return from England and resumption of the Presidency he continued to live in Boston, as minister of the Second Church. This arrangement gave increasing dissatisfaction, and the General Court very soon passed a vote" that the President of Harvard College, for the time being, shall reside there, as hath been accustomed in time past." When after a year and a half

1693.

Dec. 2.

Sibley, Biographical Sketches,

424.

5 See above, 193-195.

6 Mass. Prov. Rec.