Hence

between him and the Mathers, father and son.' forward there was no course for the latter party but war to the knife. The circumstances of the moment favored them; for it was the moment of intense exasperation against Dudley on account of his alleged malpractices. in Nova Scotia. Increase Mather wrote him a frank letter, charging him with "bribery and unright- 1708. eousness" in arresting a process in the Admiralty, Jan. 20. till satisfied with a sum of money; with plotting against the liberties of the Province, a crime proved by a letter of his son Paul; with "hypocrisy and falseness in the affairs of the College," shown by his consent to the revival of that charter, which for a long time he had declared to be dead; with "the guilt of innocent blood" in the cases of Leisler and Milburn; and with "ordinarily forsaking the worship of God," and spending his Sunday afternoons "with some persons reputed very ungodly." Two considerations, said the ex-President, prompted him to "discharge his conscience with these rebukes. One is, in that you have sometimes said, that if ever you had a spiritual father, I was the man; and there was a time when I encouraged the church, with whom I have been laboring in the work of the Lord these forty-six years and more, to call you to be my assistant in the ministry. The other is, that a letter thought to have been written by me induced the late King William to give you a commission for the government here."

The ex-President's son wrote to the Governor on the same day, in a yet more animated strain. Having hitherto "in divers letters sought out acceptable words," he says, your Excellency now compels me to see that the schemes

66

1 Nov. 25, 1707, the Council sent four of its members to Cotton Mather to inquire respecting a letter which he was said to have addressed, Oct. 2, 1706, to Sir Charles Hobby, animadverting upon Dudley, and respect

ing other letters of his to Dudley himself. The next day the Committee reported to the Board that they had had a conference with him. (Council Record.)

of speaking and modes of addressing used among persons of the most polite education will not answer the expectation I have had of them." Adopting accordingly a different method of address, he tells the Governor that his letter, erroneously ascribed to his father, favoring Dudley's appointment, had been written when he "weakly believed that the wicked and horrid things done before the righteous Revolution had been heartily repented of, and that the rueful business at New York, which many illustrious persons of both Houses of Parliament often called a barbarous murder, .. had been considered with such a repentance as might save him and his family from any further storms of heaven for the revenging of it. Your snare," he writes, "has been that thing, the hatred whereof is most expressedly required of the ruler, namely covetousness;" and he largely repeats and expatiates on the charges of the Governor's evil conduct in the voyages to Nova Scotia; in his obstruction of the capture of Port Royal; in his appointments to office; in his management of meetings of the Council; in his arresting the course of justice; and in "the horrible trade carried on at the castle," where the Governor was said to have misapplied certain funds specially appropriated by the Representatives.

Feb. 8.

The astute and well-poised Governor was more than a match for men enfeebled by passion. After a fortnight's interval, which perhaps he found useful to get the better of his own choler, he replied in what is on the whole a tone of calmness and dignity, though the reader may think he also observes signs of a timidity indicative of a conscience ill at ease, and the consciousness of an insecure position. Dudley gives back Scripture in abundance, and turns the tables upon his correspondents in the way of edifying recommendations of self-scrutiny. knew, he says, what was the root of their bitterness. Every one can see through the pretence, and is able

He

to account for the spring of these letters, and how they would have been prevented, without easing any grievances you complain of. . . . . . . . I desire you will keep your station, and let fifty or sixty good ministers, your equals in the Province, have a share in the government of the College, and advise thereabouts as well as yourselves, and I hope all will be well. I am an honest man, and have lived religiously these forty years to the satisfaction of the ministers in New England, and your wrath against me is cruel, and will not be justified. . . The College must be disposed against the opinion of all the ministers in New England except yourselves, or the Governor torn in pieces. This is the view I have of your inclination.”1

Discord be

tween the

Governor

tatives.

The elections of the next General Court after that at which Dudley had obtained an ostensible acquittal, and its proceedings as soon as it came together, showed the strength of the popular feeling against and the him. Along with the Queen's disallowance of the Represen penalties which had been imposed upon Vetch May 30. and the persons charged with having been concerned with him, the Governor laid before the Court a communication "declaring the royal style upon the union of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland." The occasion rendered proper an Address to her Majesty, and the Representatives drew up minutes for such a paper, and desired the concurrence of the Council. The minutes proposed did not please that body, and, after a delay which they may have hoped would tend to allay the existing irritation, as well as afford time for reasoning and management, they proposed on their part to intrust to a joint committee the preparation of the heads of an Address. The Representatives at first "insisted upon the heads offered by that House" (which probably embraced the

May 31.

June 24.

For this spirited correspondence, comp. Pierce, History of Harvard see Mass. Hist. Col., III. 126 et seq.; University, 80 et seq.

question as to the prosecution of Vetch and his partners), but gave their consent to a memorial congratulatJune 26. ing the Queen on the consummation of the union. of the kingdoms. The House sent up a list of "grievances," most of which related to unauthorized

July 1.

July 3.

uses by the Governor of moneys granted by them for specific objects, though there was also a complaint that Leverett, now President of the College, still retained the office of Judge of Probate. The House granted to the Governor the sum of two hundred pounds, instead of the three hundred usually voted at the spring session. There was also a deviation from past usage in the language of the vote. The Council sent messengers "to observe the same to the House," but it was afterwards sent up again without alteration." The Council proposed to the House an enlargement of the grant to the Governor; but, "finding that they could prevail nothing therein," they consented to it as it stood, and the Governor relieved himself from further opposition for the present by a prorogation of the Court.' He complained to the Board of Trade that there had been "considerable alterations, more than usual, in the House, and .. they showed their temper, and left out three principal gentlemen of the Council, of approved loyalty and of the best estates in the country." He now

July 5.

July 10.

2

1 Mass. Prov. Rec. and Council to the Queen, in which they declare Records, at the dates.

2 The three principal gentlemen were Joseph Lynde, Eliakim Hutchinson, and Penn Townsend. (Mass. Prov. Rec.)—“Our present General Assembly have acted like men. They have turned out of the Council several of D-'s creatures, and the country has chosen better Representatives than they had the last year. The present House of Commons here has voted an Address

that they declined sending a former Address, because there was an article in it applauding the Governor's conduct, and praying his continuance," &c. (Extract from a letter from Boston, of July 17, 1708, in Deplorable State, &c., p. 4). — July 19, the Board of Trade received from Dudley his "defence against a representation presented to her Majesty at Windsor, June 23, 1707." (Journal of the Board of Trade.)

gave up in discouragement the contest for his favorite object. He desisted thenceforward from pressing the desperate claim for a fixed salary; and the House, on its part, made him grants from year to year, of five hundred pounds for each remaining year of his administration, giving him half of that sum at each of the two sessions.

Oct. 26.

Nov. 3.

The next session began with a dispute about the "grievThe Council was disposed to justify the Governor. The House maintained its position. The Council again requested a reconsideration; a conference took place; and, partly by explanations of the past and partly by promises for the future, a truce of that dispute was effected; and by a grant of three hundred pounds instead of two hundred, which latter sum was the usual autumnal allowance to the Governor, the recent reduction from his accustomed pay was made up. He asked for a small allowance to defray the charge of a journey which he proposed to make into the eastern country, to acquaint himself with the progress of the war there. The House "prayed him not to expose his person in a journey eastward at this season, but to command the officers of the forces there to attend him at Boston to receive his commands." But he urged the advantages of his own plan, and they gave him twenty pounds to enable him to carry it out, "in consideration of the extraordinary occasion.”1

Nov. 5.

Nov. 6.

fine.

1709.

Vetch, at the time fixed for his trial, was still in England, detained there by solicitations which he had gone to make for an enterprise against Quebec. When Remission the next General Court came together, he had re- of Vetch's turned, bearing the Queen's commission as Colonel, and invested with a high command in the expedition which was on foot. His present importance overbalanced his former delinquency; the legal acquittal of one of his partners, who had been tried during his absence, 'Mass. Prov. Rec., at the dates. See above, p. 302.

April.