subject of dispute. The House refused to concur in the amendment, and again the measure fell to the ground. The Council by a unanimous vote refused to accede to a grant of five hundred pounds made by the House to its agents in England. In a calm and respectful message the House expressed to the Governor its approval of the position taken by the last House respecting the great question of salaries, and the Governor immediately resorted to another measure of coercion, adjourning the Court to meet after four days at Cambridge. Aug. 27. The further dispute was to be of no long duration. Of course the House met in no more manageable mood, when, for the gratification, as it seemed, of the Governor's passion, or for a harsher trial of his power, it found itself in a second unusual place. But it did not overlook the advantage of proceeding with dignity in a quarrel with an angry man. It now made a grant to him of six thousand pounds "for his support the last year, and further to enable him to manage the affairs of government." "If you will not comply," he said to the Representatives, "with his Majesty's instruction, you might at least forbear your endeavor to seduce one of his servants from his declared duty;" and in his ill-humor he warned them against adjourning themselves, as they had done, "from Saturday morning to Tuesday afternoon," and threatened to bring to the notice of Parliament this unauthorized extension of their right by charter to adjourn themselves for forty-eight hours. They answered his refusal of their money with an argument to which the frequent previous repetition of it now left nothing to be added. Aug. 30. Governor The same day, as he came towards the ferry from Cambridge on his way to Boston, his carriage was overBurnet's set, and he was thrown into the water. A fever followed, and he died at the end of a week,' death. Sept. 7. New England Weekly Journal, for September 8. having first, however, sent to the House from his sickchamber a very long vindication of his own proceedings and claims, accompanied with a strain of equally emphatic condemnation of the opposition which had distressed and baffled him.' The Court, which had little fault to find with him, except for his stubborn fidelity to a claim opposed by themselves with as stubborn resistance, and which could not be unimpressed by his generous qualities and by his various accomplishments, honored him by a sumptuous funeral.2 Sept. 12. Sept. 10. Lieutenant Sept. 17. Appearing at the Council Board, from which he had been absent since the third day after Burnet assumed the government, Lieutenant-Governor Dummer adjourned the Court for a week. His Governor speech at its meeting briefly declared his good Dummer. intentions towards the Province, and referred to the obligation which his instructions imposed to ask for a stated salary. The House repeated, in the same terms as before, its vote to supply the treasury by an issue of twenty thousand pounds in bills of credit. The Council amended the vote, with reference to the disputed question of the liability of the money to be drawn from the treasury by the Governor's warrant. The House refused to accept the amendment, and the Council to recede from it. With the now familiar arguments, the House replied to the Lieutenant-Governor's "It is not with so vain a hope as to convince you that I take the trouble to answer your message, but, if possible, to open the eyes of the deluded people whom you represent, and whom you are at so much pains to keep in ignorance of the true state of their affairs. . . . I am tied up by my instructions on one hand, and meet with nothing but contradiction and ill usage from you on the other." These are fair specimens of the tone of the paper, which betrays rather the petulance of an invalid, Sept. 18. Sept. 23. than the haughty confidence of the general tenor of the Governor's career. • It cost £1097 11s. 3d. (Mass. Prov. Rec., for September 6 and November 19.) Dr. Colman, as the eldest minister of Boston," wrote to Thomas Burnet a letter of condolence on his brother's death, and took the opportunity to deprecate further persistence of the home government in the claim for a stated salary. (Turell's Colman, 195–197.) Sept. 24. demand for a salary; the Lieutenant-Governor justified it, and the House criticised his plea. But the other point, to which up to this time they had adhered with equal obstinacy, they now surrendered. The inconvenience of a suspension of payments from the treasury was too great to be longer borne; and the House had become discouraged as to carrying their point in respect to the form of the grant. The necessary supply was now granted in the manner which had been practised before the last year of Governor Shute; that is, it was made subject to be drawn from the treasury by the Governor's warrant without a subsequent action of the Legislature upon each Sept. 26. Nov. 19- Dec. 19. payment. The Court, having sat a week, was prorogued to come together again at Boston, the Council having first repeated their refusal to make an allowance for the remuneration of the House's agents in England.1 In the next session, of a month's duration, the standing topics of dispute were again treated, but it was with no novelty of discussion, and nothing beyond routine business was accomplished, except that a law was passed relieving Baptists and Quakers from parish taxes.2 The Lieutenant-Governor recommended to the House not to waste their time in deliberating about a grant to him, since he must adhere to the instruction to receive none except in a stated salary. To make good their own ground, they went through the form of granting him seven hundred and fifty pounds. The Council still refused to meet the House for the election of an Attorney-General, and to consent to its grants to its agents; and it refused, though earnestly urged, to have a 1 Mass. Prov. Rec. 2 Province Laws, II. 543.. Since the first year of King George the Second, the Baptists and Quakers had been excused from paying a polltax towards the support of ministers. The present Act exempted their estates. For some very suggestive views of the political relations in Massachusetts of the question concerning baptism, see Thomas Cobbet's letter, in Mass. Hist. Col., XXXVIII. 291; comp. above, II. 492. Dec. 9. Burnet's Dec. 13. conference with the House on those questions. The House voted to direct the Treasurer to place five hundred pounds at their disposal by paying it into their Speaker's hands; but the Council defeated this plan by an amendment directing the Treasurer to pay the money to Jeremiah Dummer, who in England represented Grant to the whole Court. The House, in a single vote, Governor granted three thousand pounds to their agents, family. and two thousand pounds to the late Governor's children. Personally he had not been after their pattern; but they could not but respect his memory, for manliness is sure to command the respect of manly opponents. In another vote the Representatives attempted to get their agents paid as for services in calling Burnet to account before the Privy Council for taking illegal fees for the clearance of vessels. But against both devices they found the Council equally inflexible. Dec. 15. 1730. Appoint ment of Belcher. At the annual meeting for elections, the Lieutenant-Governor made no reference to the contro- May 27. verted questions. He told the Court that Burnet's practice as to taking fees had been disapproved by the Privy Council, and that Jonathan Belcher, one of the House's agents, was about to return to Massa- Governor chusetts as Governor. The House, well knowing that it would not be accepted, made an allowance of nine hundred pounds to the Lieutenant-Governor, and then, on account of an alarm of the small-pox in Boston, and of the expectation of the speedy arrival of the new Governor, the Court at its request was prorogued for a month, to reassemble at the end of that time at Cambridge. May 30. CHAPTER VI. Ar some time within the first nine years after the immigration of Winthrop's company, Andrew Belcher set up an inn in Cambridge. His son Andrew made a considerable fortune as a merchant, first of Hartford and then of Boston, and was a member of the Council of Massachusetts several years under the Provincial Charter.1 He married a daughter of Deputy-Governor Danforth. His son Jonathan, after finishing the course of study at Harvard College, travelled abroad, both in England and on the Continent, and, according to a statement in one of his speeches, had an honorable reception at the court of the Elector of Hanover, and of his mother, the Princess Sophia, heiress presumptive to the British crown. ReturnJonathan ing home, he followed in his father's steps, becomBelcher. ing a merchant, a Representative in the General Court, and a member of the Council. 1699. Governor He had not a generous nature, but in traits which attract popular good-will he was not wanting. His person and presence were graceful and pleasing. He had a cheerful countenance, a hearty voice, a demonstrative gesticulation, and an habitually affable address. He was a man of society and of the world. Though foolishly irritable, and prone to small resentments which he pursued without 'It was while he was a Counsellor that, the selectmen of Boston having objected to his sending corn to Curaçoa on account of a scarcity of that article, he was so public-spirited as to reply: "The hardest fend off; if you stop my vessels, I will hinder the coming in of three times as much." (Sewall's Diary, for May 20, 1713.) |