Lieutenant Dummer. Nov. 16. Under the same influences, Lieutenant-Governor Tailer was superseded, and his place was given to William AppointDummer, son-in-law of Governor Dudley, a native ment of of New England, but for some years resident in Governor the parent country. Dudley was much gratified by this arrangement, which he professed to regard "as a mark of the King's favor for his thirteen years' successful service to the crown," though, had the benefit been withholden, his "loyalty and good behavior to the government should have been equally apparent to everybody. The King," he added, "has for ever endeared the hearts of his loyal subjects in these Provinces by appointing so prudent and good a man as Colonel Shute to rule over them. I am now grown old, and having lived to see his Majesty triumph over his enemies, and the administration of the kingdom settled in a wise and faithful ministry, I think I have lived long enough.' 1 Arrival of Massachu setts. Oct. 4. More than two years had passed since the death of Queen Anne when the new Governor of Massachusetts came to Boston, though his appointment Shute in had been known there for four months.2 The Board of Trade had been informed, with heedless. exaggeration, that in Massachusetts there were then ninetyfour thousand white people, besides two thousand negroes, and twelve hundred Christian Indians. The commerce of the people of that Colony was not so inconsiderable as might be inferred from the embarrassing disorder of the currency. They dealt with some profit in timber and cured fish, in horses, furs, pitch, tar, turpentine, whale oil, and 1 Letter of Dudley, in Mass. Hist. 13.)-"Certain news is brought that Col., XXXII. 308. General Court Record, for June 5, 1716. — Hutchinson says (Hist. II. 19) that "he was received with usual parade." I should think, at all events, that it was not with any parade that was unusual. It cost the sum of £36. (General Court Record, for November Colonel Samuel Shute is made our staves; their ship-building amounted to six thousand tons annually; and their manufactures supplied a large part of their demand for shoes and for the coarser kinds of linen and woollen cloth. Some iron works had been erected, and "some hatters had lately set up their trade."1 Prospects of his administration. With all the advantages incident to the loyal and tractable temper of the people, it was impossible that the task which lay before the new Governor should prove to be an easy one. The generation on the stage of active life had been living under strong excitements, and questions of grave interest between them and their foreign rulers were still pending. With a few short interruptions, the war with the Indians which had just been closed had harassed the people of Massachusetts, and made constant demands on their energies, for forty years. Of this period twenty-five years had passed under that new constitution of government, which took away some material powers and privileges enjoyed under the colonial charter. Though the passion for selfgovernment, thus restrained, had been delayed by the troubles of the times in marking out a definite course of opposition, the traditions of freedom were still venerated and cherished. In the time of the able and resolute Governor Dudley, the people had made experiments on their strength, the result of which, if not conspicuous, had not been discouraging. Not only was his successor an antagonist less formidable in proportion to his greatly inferior abilities, but the state of affairs more easily admitted of a contest with him without prejudice to other interests. It was a dangerous as well as a thankless operation to embarrass Dudley while he was conducting the common defence against the Indians. When the public enemy was quieted, internal dissension became safe; there was always least probability of collision between the two parties of freedom and prerogative in times of peril from Chalmers, History of the Revolt, II. 7, 12. abroad. As often as her borders were invaded by the allied French and Indians, the policy of Massachusetts leaned towards conciliation and deference to the government whose assistance was so desirable; while the Ministry, on the other hand, was interested to keep Massachusetts favorably disposed. When peace was restored, the domestic quarrel was ready to break out afresh. Thus, when the pacification of Utrecht, binding the French to refrain from hostility, had just deprived the Indians of that alliance which was their main stimulus and strength, the people were less liable than in the past years to be incommoded by a quarrel with their Governor and his masters. Shute, indeed, came into his office with one personal advantage in respect of favorable prepossessions on the part of those whom he was to govern. He was a dissenter from the Church of England, which Lord Bellomont never was, and which the facile courtier Dudley had ceased to be.1 But religious sympathy was no longer 1 There is extant, in a half-sheet folio, "A Speech made unto His Excellency, Samuel Shute, Esq., Captain-General [&c.]. By the Reverend Dr. Cotton Mather, Attended with the Ministers of the Massachusetts-Province, New England, May 30, 1717. Printed and sold by B. Green, in Newbury-Street." Mather outdid himself in extravagance of eulogy. Shute's appointment was "An Happiness whereinto we have been indeed most agreeably Surprized, by the Providence of our Glorious LORD, who has with most Remarkable Circumstances herein testified His Tender Care of His Flocks in the Wilderness. . Your EXCELLENCY having honourably spent your Younger Years in the Armies which bravely fought for the Glorious Cause of Rescuing the Liberties of Europe and of Mankind, . . . you have been gen erously Willing to devote your later Years to the Publick Service in a Care for the Good of Others. And our Gracious GOD has ordered it, that This His People shall have the Felicity of being made the Objects whom your Care shall be employed upon.- Felices nimium, sua si bona norint." And so on. Barrington comes in for a good word, near the end: "And we promise ourselves, that whilst your Incomparable BROTHER is a Patron of so much consequence unto our United Brethren on the other side of the Atlantick, your EXCELLENCY will vouchsafe us [the Ministers] our part in your most auspicious Patronage." the bond of union that it had been between the non-conformists of England and of the Colonies. There was no longer a common ambition, or a sense of common danger. Nothing could be more different than were the persecuted non-conformist ministers of the times of the Charleses, and the easy non-conformist ministers of the time of Anne, husbands of the daughters, of whom Shute's mother was one, of London citizens magnificent on the exchange. The legislation in England during the reign of King William, while it had given to dissenters in England all the privileges which at present they could hope for, had given to dissenters in Massachusetts most of what they desired. The national church, it is true, had set up its worship among them; but that was an annoyance from which they could no longer have any expectation of escaping, and to which, in the course of thirty years, they had become accustomed, if not reconciled. Of the new Governor, in other respects, they could have scarcely heard any thing, except that he was a person who possessed some interest with the new managers of England, and who had coveted some office that would enrich or maintain him. There was no reason why they should welcome him with ardor; he came not to gratify or benefit them, but to get a living and to execute his orders; and he came at a moment when they were in no humor to be well pleased with any thing. Year after year they had been fighting the French, with all but ruinous ill-success, with no useful help from England, and through a succession of quarrels with the incompetent and overbearing English officers, who had misused their money, wasted their force, and protected themselves by maligning their character. Their sturdy industry did not so prosper but that they were very poor; and, in two par whom I have always had a great trial of the Governor, Mather wrote Esteem, and this will increase it," again to Lord Barrington, Nov. 4, &c. 1718, in exuberant praise of him. After more than a year's further (Mass. Hist. Col., I. 105.) ties about equal in strength, they were angrily discussing the cause and the remedy of their poverty. Occasions of to him. Such was the state of things in Massachusetts to which Shute was to accommodate his administration. His abilities, without being contemptible, were not such as to fit him to confront a resolute and able opposi- opposition tion. He was good-natured and fair; but at the same time was capable of taking hasty offence, and of being impelled by it to imprudent action. Without jealousy of prerogative, or personal pride, he was alive to the soldier's point of honor in obedience to orders; and, while to many of the subjects of his government the mere thwarting of the Ministry had become a sufficient motive for persisting in a measure, the Governor found sufficient justification of a measure or a pretension in the fact that it suited the Ministry's will. It was impossible that in the circumstances the provincial government constituted by King William's charter should work smoothly. The Governor considered it to be his business to promote the wishes of the British courtiers, and the interest of the British traders. The Representatives considered it to be theirs to look after the well-being of their constituents, which they assumed that they better understood than it could possibly be understood by a Spanish campaigner, a stipendiary and creature of General Stanhope. His ear had been instructed by Dummer and Belcher, and he took the right side as to the most troublesome question of the time. But, even in so doing, he exposed himself to the displeasure of some of the most considerable men about him, and threw them into an acrimonious opposition to his government; while the party with which he allied himself, having already substantially won the day, had not much need of service from him, and did not much care for his patronage.1 1 The question of public or private bank was discussed in Shute's time with vehement passion. Pamphlets of that period agree in describ |