CHAPTER IV. try of New 1716. AT the time of the arrival of Governor Shute in New England, the population of New Hampshire was computed at "nine thousand persons, of which number there were fifteen hundred men, very few white servants, and Population a hundred and fifty blacks." The principal pro- and indusductions of the Province were ships, "lumber, Hampshire. fish, masts for the royal navy, and turpentine," the annual value of the whole "seldom exceeding fifty thousand pounds per annum of New England money." The lumber and some of the fish were exported to the West Indies and to the Western Islands in exchange for sugar, molasses, rum, and wine. Lumber, tar, and turpentine, sent to England and Ireland, brought back linen and woollen manufactured goods. The proceeds of fish shipped to Portugal and Italy were returned in salt, or remitted to England for purchases there. Twenty vessels made foreign voyages, and about a hundred were engaged in fishing. The Province had some four hundred seamen. There were no manufactures of any kind.' Trade is wholly lumber, fish, and masts for the royal navy. . . . . . Annual produce of fish, lumber, &c., is all £40,000. . . . . . The number of inhabitants are about 9000, of which about 150 blacks." (British Colonial Papers.) Joshua Gee, in 1729, says: "Those commodities [of New England production] fall very short of purchasing their clothing in England, and therefore what other necessaries they want they are forced to While the litigation with Allen was going on in England, George Vaughan, son of the former Counsellor, William Vaughan, was employed there in maintaining the claim of the occupants of the soil. His own activity and his father's position recommended him to the favor of men in power, and, when Burgess was made Governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Vaughan, at his instance,' was appointed his Lieutenant for the latter Province. He came over immediately, and claimed the place. Usher contested his right to act before Oct. 12. the arrival of his principal. But the Assembly allowed Vaughan's title, and Usher did not persist in his opposition.3 Lieutenant- 1715. The Board of Trade, who, as usual, thought they were too little consulted by the Ministry, were displeased with Vaughan's appointment. They considered it liable to the same objection as had formerly been made against Partridge's, and that "there would be as much propriety in appointing a wolf to preserve the flocks of England, as to nominate a man concerned in saw-mills to guard from waste the masts reserved for the navy of Britain." And their dissatisfaction was not lessened when the difficulties he experienced from the contumacy of the provincials were such as to cause him to represent that their divisions were "so great as hardly to be expressed." 4 Dudley was now looking forward to an early surrender of the office of Governor, and he came no more into New Hampshire. Vaughan lost no time in calling an Assembly, which failed to come up to his wishes Nov. 8. manufacture for themselves." (Trade and Navigation of England, p. 25.) But if he had kept close to the Report to the Board of Trade, he would have confined the statement to Massachusetts. (O'Callaghan, Documents, &c., V. 598.) N. H. Provincial Papers, II. By Burgess's advice several changes were also made in the Council of New Hampshire (British Colonial Papers), which occasioned dissatisfaction in the Province. (N. H. Provincial Papers, III. 677–679.) 3 Ibid., II. 678, 679; III. 603. 4 Chalmers, Revolt, II. 35, 36. in respect to grants of money, and was dissolved May 19. after a six months' session.' He urged his demand 1716. on the next Assembly,2 which not only took no Aug. 21. measures towards acceding to it, but resolved to defer all further consideration of the matter till the Governor should arrive. Governor in New Oct. 18. When Shute came in that character, his first pressing business in the Province related to the scarcity of money, occasioned by the same causes as in Mas- Shute sachusetts. He began with giving offence to the Hampshire. House by ordering them to hold a conference with the Council on a question which he refused to announce beforehand; and when it turned out to be the question whether the issue of bills of credit should be to the amount which they had consented to, or to a larger amount proposed by the Council, they proved to be impracticable, and the Assembly was dissolved.3 House came together in a better mood, and satisfied the Governor by agreeing to issue bills of credit to the amount of fifteen thousand pounds, to be lent for fifteen years, at ten per cent interest.1 1717. A new Jan. 24. May 18. Dispute Vaughan. A quarrel followed between the Governor and his second in authority. Vaughan, made arrogant by the consequence of his family and his personal hold on between the popular party in his Province, proved a trouble- Shute and some subordinate. According to Shute's interpretation of his commission, he was always Governor of New Hampshire, whether present or not within its borders. Vaughan held that in the Governor's absence the chief executive authority resided in himself." Shute sent him an order to proclaim a day of fasting in New Hampshire, and it was not done. He instructed Vaughan to prorogue 1 N. H. Provincial Papers, III. 599, 647. Ibid., II. 649. 8 Ibid., III. 679. 4 Ibid., 688. Ibid., II. 697, 698, 703-706. Sept. 24. 4 the Assembly, and Vaughan dissolved it.' Vaughan susSept. 30. pended a Counsellor who reproved his insubordination.2 Shute came to Portsmouth, restored the Counsellor, and suspended Vaughan." The House declared its disapprobation of Vaughan's course. The Representatives of one town, Hampton, expressed the opposite view in language so warm that the Governor called it libellous, and, with the Council's concurrence, he put them under heavy bonds for their good behavior.5 In England, Shute's interest prevailed, with the aid of Sir William Ashurst, who, though not now official agent for any of the Colonies, was much consulted on their affairs, and who had been displeased by a proposal of Vaughan, while in England, to raise a tax in New Hampshire to be paid to officers of the crown. Vaughan was accordingly displaced, and was succeeded by John Lieutenant- Wentworth, of New Hampshire lineage and birth, formerly a sea-captain, now an opulent merchant, and for the last five years a Counsellor of the Province. He abstained from making Vaughan's claim to execute the chief magistracy in the Governor's absence. Sept. 12. Governor Wentworth. N. H. Provincial Papers, III. 701, 705. * Ibid., 702, 703. This was Samuel Penhallow, author of the "History of the Wars of New England." For a sketch of his life and character, see Ibid., IV. 18. 6 7 Wentworth's commission (N. H. Provincial Papers, II. 711, 712) is countersigned by the great name of Joseph Addison, who had been Secretary of State since April 16, 1717. Addison succeeded Lord Townshend, who had taken Lord Bolingbroke's 3 N. H. Provincial Papers, II. place, Sept. 17, 1714. (Comp. Ibid., 710. 4 Ibid., III. 709. * Ibid., 710–713.—" May 10, 1718, Voted that any member of this House that shall neglect to wear his sword, or be found without it during sessions of General Assembly, from this day, shall pay a fine of five shillings to clark, for the use of the House." (Ibid., 732.) 187. IV. 587.) In 1714, Lord Stanhope succeeded Secretary Bromley. (See above, p. 279.) The later Secretaries of State in this reign were the Duke of Montrose (1714), Mr. Methuen (1716), the Duke of Roxburgh (1717), the Earl of Sunderland (1717), Mr. Craggs (who succeeded Addison in 1718), Lord Townshend (1721), Lord Carteret (1721), Robert Belknap, Farmer's edition, 184, Walpole (1723), and the Duke of Newcastle (1724). He retained the office for thirteen years, administering it with conscientiousness and good judgment, and rarely giving cause of offence. - Extension Hampshire. New Hampshire began to extend its narrow limits, which hitherto such had been the terror of Indian invasions had embraced only a space of some fifteen miles about the mouth of the Piscataqua.1 The town of Stratham, within that radius, had been set off from Exeter with a 1716. separate incorporation, just before Shute's arrival.2 March 20. The settlement of Londonderry was of greater importance. A hundred families from the town of that name in Ireland, famous for its heroic defence against the of New troops of King James the Second, resolved, with their four ministers, to establish themselves in America. Sixteen of these families, to whom numbers of others were soon added, received permission from the General Court of Massachusetts to occupy a tract of land on the 1719. left bank of the Merrimack, which, from the char- April 11. acter of the growth upon it, was then known by the name of Nutfield. A few miles below the point where that river now turns the vast wheels of the mills of Manchester, they established a manufactory of linen, spinning and weaving their flax by hand labor.3 A question arose about the acquisition of a good title to their lands. In the old controversy with Allen, Mason's assign, it had been allowed on the other side that all of New Hampshire belonged to him except the portion already settled. But his heirs were minors; Usher, with them, had his undefined claims; and all parties, probably, were tired enough of the question to be willing to abstain from pressing it. Lieutenant-Governor Wentworth undertook to cut the knot. The jurisdiction, at all events, belonged to the King, whoever might prove to have the 1 See above, pp. 30, 352. 691. 3 From their arrival in this country 2 N. H. Provincial Papers, II. is to be dated the culture of the potato. |