him [Dudley], and he does not find one that gives him a good word; if we have not a change by having a new Governor, we shall in a short time be ruined. . . . . . We want a good soldier to manage the war.. Nothing like a viceroy over all." It is not likely that Dudley was acquainted with these letters, but the breach went on widening. Usher wrote to the Lords, "His Excellency 1709. Nov. 15. is pleased to tell me, when I go into the Province Aug. 5. I put all in a flame." Dudley, on his part, informed them, "Mr. Usher has been very unfortunate in putting himself into Mr. Allen's affair, the delay of which has made him poor and angry, and particularly with Mr. Waldron." In a letter to Dudley, Waldron calls Usher "an envious, malicious liar." Dudley encloses it to the Secretary of State, and acquaints him that though Waldron's language is "too harsh," the statement which it clothes "is true.' 99 1 ་ 1710. Dudley ordered by letter that Waldron should be received into the Council, over which, in the Governor's absence, Usher was presiding. Usher asked the Secretary whether he had received the warrant with the royal sign-manual appointing Waldron, and being Nov. 21. informed that it had not come he refused to allow Waldron to be sworn, who, on his part, "said he should not take notice, but wait the Governor's instructions," and then "parted sourly with his hat on." When at any time," so Usher wrote, "I come into the Council, if Waldron is there before me, with disdain has his back some time to me, and at a distance says, 'Your servant,' with insulting deportment, affronts many and great, with disrespect to the Queen's commission." Such were the official amenities of that place and time." pers. 66 Letters in British Colonial Pa- cil, exhibited a complaint against Major Shadrach Walton, for abusing him, and calling him a knave, and threatening him, &c., as upon file. 2 "Robert Ellott, Esq., one of the members of her Majesty's Coun "An account of the circumstances and state of New of New Hampshire. 1708. July 6. war, 1709. .... Condition Hampshire," drawn up by George Vaughan, who had succeeded his father as agent of the Province in England, represents it as containing "six towns; viz., Portsmouth, Dover, Exeter, Hampton, Newcastle, and Kingstown, - the two last very small and extraordinary poor; drove to great straits by reason of the there not being a thousand men in the whole government." Dudley wrote to the Lords, "I account New Hampshire is in value of men, towns, and March 1. acres of improvement just a tenth part of the Massachusetts, and I believe I do not misreckon to a hundredth part, their trade excepted, which will not make much more than the thirtieth part of Boston and dependencies." "Our poverty is such," the Representatives replied to the Governor's application for aid to the expedition against Canada, " that one-third of the inhabitants have not bread to eat, nor wherewithal to procure it, there being a seventeen hundred pound tax forthwith to be paid, which we fear will be very hard and difficult for the poor people." 1 June 27. Major Walton appeared and acknowledged before this Board that he did call Robert Ellott, Esq., knave, and that he did say if Mr. Ellott took those persons' parts, which the said Walton called rogues and rascals, and said he would cut their ears and split their noses, he would do the same to him, the said Ellott; and, further, the said Walton did declare that he was sorry that he should use such language to Mr. Ellott; upon which Mr. Ellott declared himself satisfied for the abuse used to his person." The Council cautioned Walton against such intemperance in future, and discharged him on the payment of a fine of £2 16s. 6d. (Record of the Council of New Hampshire, for June 20, 1707, in N. H. Provincial Papers, II. 508, 509; comp. Journal of the House, in Ibid., IV. 433.) 1 N. H. Provincial Papers, III. 386. "One half of our men are employed against the daily insults of a barbarous enemy, which renders us very poor and feeble." (Address to the Queen, Oct. 30, 1711, in Ibid., 507.)-In such a state of things it is very noticeable that the Province turned its attention to a quite different interest, and made as a Province its first provision for free schools. A "Latin School" was established in Portsmouth. The master, to "be appointed by his Excellency, Council, and settled minister of the town," was to be paid after the rate of fifty pounds per annum, besides what the 1706. July 25. 1707. Oct. 22. 1715. At the time of Dudley's special straits, the government of New Hampshire sustained him by addressing the Queen with earnest representations in his behalf.1 Similar representations were made after the death of Queen Anne, but without effect.2 Usher obtained no more favor with the new home government. William Vaughan and five other Counsellors wrote to George Vaughan, still agent in London, "We March 18. pray Lieutenant-Governor Usher may have his quietus, which he said he had often written to England for. He complains his office is a burden to him, and the Retirement people think it is a burden to them, and so 't is a pity but both were eased."3 Usher was displaced, and George Vaughan was made Lieutenant-Governor. Usher withdrew to his stately home at Medford, in Massachusetts, where he died when nearly eighty Sept. 25. years old. of Usher. 1726. Visit of The commission of Dudley empowered him to command the militia of Rhode Island; but that chaotic community did not afford a hopeful sphere for the application of his arbitrary principles. Soon after his return Dudley to from his early visit to the eastern country, he went to Newport, attended from Boston by several members of his Council and others, and in form presented his claim to the Governor and Council of Rhode Rhode Island. 1702. Sept. 3. at least as early as 1658. (Ibid., I. 312.) 1 N. H. Provincial Papers, III. 328, 350. On the latter occasion he was also extolled in an Address from the six ministers (Ibid., 351), and from numerous civil and military officers and others. (Ibid., 839.) 2 Ibid., 576; comp. 517. Sept. 4. Sept. 5. Island. They referred him to the grant of the control over its militia made to the Colony in the charter of King Charles the Second, and said they could take no step in compliance with his demand, except under authority from the General Assembly, which would not be in session till the next month. Dudley ordered the major of "the Island regiment" to parade his command on the following day. The major excused himself, saying he was sworn to serve the colonial government; and nothing could be done in that way. In the Narragansett country, to which Dudley passed on, he succeeded better. The militia officer there in command made no trouble. "The whole body of the soldiers in arms" took the oath which the Governor proposed; and, having "treated the soldiers as the time and place would allow," he went home. The Governor and Council of Rhode Island came to the Narragansett country, and there" used all methods to bring back the people to confusion." The General Assembly, meeting soon after, voted to send an agent with an Address to the Queen on the important subject in dispute.' Sept. 7. Sept. 17. Another matter of scarcely less interest was Dudley's claim, justified by a similar order in his commission, to exercise jurisdiction in Rhode Island as Vice-Admiral. The Governor of that Colony had issued commissions to armed vessels. Dudley held that Cranston had no authority for so doing, and that such commissions were void. Nathaniel Byfield, Judge of Admiralty, refused on this ground to condemn a French prize brought in by June. a Rhode Island privateer, and thereby gave such offence that, when he adjourned his court in Newport, he was hooted down the street, without any notice being taken by any in the government." 66 1705. 1 R. I. Rec., III. 458–463. • Ibid., 539; comp. 508-510, 536-538, 540. His low ony. 1702. Sept. 17. Reporting these transactions to the Board of Trade, Dudley wrote that, when he published his instructions. in Rhode Island, "the Quakers raged indecently, opinion of saying that they were ensnared and injured." He that Col"could obtain nothing of them but stubborn refusal, saying they would lose all at once, and not by pieces." "I do my duty," he said, “to acquaint your Lordships that the government of Rhode Island, in the present hands, is a scandal to her Majesty's government. It is a very good settlement, with about two thousand armed men in it, and no man in the government of any estate or education, though in the Province there be men of very good estates, ability, and loyalty; but the Quakers will by no means admit them to any trust, nor would they now accept it, in hopes of a dissolution of that misrule, and that they may be brought under her Majesty's immediate government in all things, which the major part by much of the whole people would pray for, but dare not, for fear of the oppression and affront of the Quakers' part making a noise of their charter." In his passionate disgust against the Colony, he called it "a perfect receptacle of rogues and pirates." He complained that not only would the Rhode-Islanders, with Massachusetts between them and harm, contribute neither men nor money to the war, but that they harbored and hid deserters from the camps. "While I am here [in Massachusetts] at twenty-two hundred pounds per month charge, the Colony of Rhode Island hath not had a tax of one penny in the pound this seven years, which makes her Majesty's subjects of this Province very uneasy under their charge and service in the field, while other of her Majesty's subjects sleep in security, and smile at our losses and charge, which are an equal service to themselves." 1 British Colonial Papers. - Dudley held even a more unfavorable opinion of "the Gerizzim of New Eng 1 1703. May 10. Dec. 19. land" than Cotton Mather pleased himself with expressing at length. (Magnalia, VII. 20.) |