March 25.

April 18-27.

of the pending question of provision for the Governor's support. They made him a grant of two hundred pounds. The Council sent down a message, recommending an increase of the allowance and a grant besides to the Lieutenant-Governor. The House replied that they had "resolved not to raise any further money this session," and were presently prorogued. They came together again for a few days in the following month, but attended to nothing beyond some arrangements for the prosecution of the war. At the annual meeting for the election of Counsellors, the Governor again refrained from pressing the measures which were most upon his mind. But, on the other hand, he again resorted to an offensive exercise of his prerogative by setting aside the choice of the popular favorites, Elisha Cooke and Peter Sargent, to be Counsellors. The Speaker "addressed his Excellency in the name of the House for his favor Rejection

lors by the

May 31.

to accept the two gentlemen to be of the Council, of Counsel whom he had disallowed of." The House had com- Governor. promised its dignity in vain. "His Excellency returned answer to that motion, and dismissed the House to their business." After a fortnight's delay, and not without being prompted by a message from the Council, the House consented to go into an election to supply the vacancies; and Simeon Stoddard and Samuel Hayman, who were now chosen Counsellors, were admitted

1 "I am sorry nothing that could be said would move them from a stubborn resolved temper, which has possessed the Assembly, that they will agree to nothing wherein they may show their obedience to her Majesty." (Letter of Dudley to Lord Nottingham, April 21, 1704, in British Colonial Papers.)

2 Sir Henry Ashurst took umbrage at a repetition of this strong measure, and, July 3, 1705, presented to the Board of Trade a memorial that

June 14.

Colonel Dudley had refused to admit his cousin, Peter Sargent, into the Council of the Massachusetts Bay, though annually chosen for that place, and desiring the Board to write to Colonel Dudley to admit him. Letter ordered to be written to know the reason of his constant refusal." (Journal of the Board of Trade.) Dudley probably gave heed to this, for he admitted Sargent to the Council in 1707.

by the Governor.

July 13.

"The election of Counsellors," wrote Dudley to the Lords of Trade, "is scandalously used. . . . . to affront every loyal and good man that loves the Church of England and dependence on her Majesty's government.”1

question of

June 30.

Nov. 10.

The disagreement with him on the essential points of policy went on for the present without check, notwithstanding the general good understanding which united the two parties in the conduct of the war. The House granted forty pounds to each Judge of the Superior Court Disputed for his service for the year, and the same sum to salaries. the lieutenant of the castle. To Povey, LieutenantGovernor, as captain of the castle, to which place Dudley had advanced him over Hutchinson, they voted a hundred and twenty pounds as a year's pay; but it was on onerous conditions, one of which was that, except for special reasons, he should not fail to be at the castle three days in every week. The Council gave him fifty pounds more for the first half of the year, at which proceeding the House took high offence, and voted that it was "arbitrary and illegal, and a violation of our English and charter privileges and rights." The Council sent down a message asking for "a grant for the support of the Governor and the Secretary, and to know what consideration they had had of the memorial presented by the Judges," complaining of the insufficient provision for them. A list of grants was laid before the Council, in which they in vain informed the House that they found none for the Governor. "I humbly ask," he wrote to the Secretary of State, your Honor's Nov. 27. favor and patronage for me in my difficult part with an angry people that can hardly bear the government nor Church of England amongst them, and, while my care is to keep them steady to Acts of Parliament, will make me as uneasy as they can." 2

Nov. 18.

1 British Colonial Papers.

66

2 Ibid.

Dec. 29.

Dee. 27.

Nor did any thing more satisfactory follow, when at the beginning of another session the Council formally solicited "a just and honorable supply to the Governor for his support in the remaining part of the year.' He had been too peremptory for prudence in his opening speech. In that harangue he had declared that the Commissioners of Trade had instructed him to express their regret for the refractory temper of the Assembly (referring to her Majesty's commands for the rebuilding of Pemaquid), and to say that it was " very unfit Assemblies should make representations to her Majesty without the consent and knowledge of her Majesty's Governor," and that it was unreasonable for the people of Massachusetts to "expect that they should be furnished with stores of war at her Majesty's expense, while they, of all the Colonies of America, did alone refuse to settle a salary on her Majesty's Governor and other officers there." And he added a lofty assertion of his acquaintance with the interests of the Province, his desire to promote them, and his persuasion that "their affairs would proceed better when they should think so of their Governor, and accept his service well." 1 On the other hand, in his message at the close of this session, he said he should report to the Queen that he "had asked Feb. 21. nothing referring to the war of the Assembly, but that it had been very easily complied with."2 The Queen had just repeated her instructions on both those points, and had added, "If they do not forthwith comply with our just expectation herein, they will appear to us undeserving of our royal favor and bounty towards them on the like occasion."3 But either that communication had not yet reached him, or he considered that prudence required it to be withheld till he had obtained the money which was urgently needed for the war.

1 Mass. Prov. Rec.

2 Ibid.

3 British Colonial Papers.

1705.

Jan. 11.

The financial difficulties created by the war pressed heavily. Within two-thirds of a year, successive tion of paper issues of bills of credit amounted to no less a sum

Deprecia

money.

1704

Feb. 27,

1705.

June 30, than twenty thousand pounds. With a supply so inflated, a provision that they should be received in payments into the treasury at an advance of five per cent did not save them from continued depreciation. Nor was this the only trouble which attended on them. They were freely counterfeited; and the scrupulous rulers, while they labored to stop the forgeries by penal laws, thought it their duty to make good the loss occasioned by them to innocent private holders.

Control of

Governor.

1693.

1

The Governor put forward a new pretension. As early as the second year of the provincial charter, the the Speaker- question of "the power of the Governor to disship by the miss the Speaker" had come before the Board of Trade; but for the time it passed by without serious discussion. In the organization of the third General Court constituted since Dudley's arrival, the House chose Thomas Oakes for its Speaker, the agent who in England had opposed the charter. The Governor

Nov. 21.

1705. pronounced his disapproval, and directed them to May 30. proceed to a new election. The House voted that it was "not in the Governor's power to refuse the election of a Speaker." The Governor hesitated to take the responsibility of arresting the public business. He needed a grant of twenty-two thousand pounds, which the House was ready to make, when he should cease to interfere with its organization. He proposed to the House to "put another person in the chair, with a salvo jure, till Counsellors should have been chosen," an election which, by the provision in the charter, could not be delayed. Without paying regard to the suggestion, they proceeded to the election of Counsellors; and the Governor, yielding to

1 British Colonial Papers.

July 25.

the inconvenience of further pressing the question, consented to the whole list.1 He wrote to the Lords of Trade, that Oakes, to whom he had objected as Speaker, was " a known Commonwealth's man, never quiet, nor satisfied with the government, but particularly very poor." It was at this General Court that Lieutenant-Governor Povey appeared for the last time.

2

Sept. 15.

March 2.

Persistent

Governor

for a fixed

June 22.

June 30.

The Governor had accepted a grant of two hundred pounds made to him by the General Court now expired.3 Taking care to keep his claim alive, with however little prospect of present claim of the success, he sent a message "to move the new House for a suitable and honorable allowance for salary. the support of the Governor." For answer they gave him another three hundred pounds, whereupon he prorogued them for two months, expecting, before the expiration of that time, to be prepared for a more vigorous movement. Accordingly, when they came together again, he told them of the letter which he had received from the Queen, expressing in positive terms her Majesty's expectation that they would rebuild the fort at Pemaquid, contribute to the repair of the work at the mouth of the Piscataqua, and establish regular salaries for the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor; and he added that he was instructed to represent that "the neglect of these commands would show the General Assembly undeserving of her Majesty's royal favor and bounty towards them." The Representatives replied that, since the date of the Queen's letter, which was several months old, they had, in an Address, explained

1 Mass. Prov. Rec.

2 British Colonial Papers.

8 "I have received her Majesty's picture and coat-of-arms. The arms were the next day fixed in the Council Chamber of this Province. . . . . Her Majesty's picture I have set up in my own house, where it is always in

Sept. 5.

Jan. 25.

the view of all masters of sea, strangers, and others who are bound to make their attendance, and where the Counsellors and gentlemen of the country frequently are." (Letter of Dudley to the Lords of Trade, of March 10, 1705, in British Colonial Papers.)