ished country has, as we are credibly informed, been put to above two-and-twenty thousand pounds' charge, only to be laughed at by their enemies and pitied by their friends." , 1 2 Contrary to the expectation of both friend and foe, Dudley succeeded in some way to evade or allay the storm which had been raised against him. No presumption in his favor in this controversy arises from his general character. He was certainly not a man whom conscientious scruples alone would restrain from shameful conduct. But in respect to a crime, needing, if really committed, to be covered up with all sorts of disguises, it is not unlikely that the justly strong feeling of dislike to Dudley dictated suspicions of more than was true. From some of the 1 "The Deplorable State of New England," though published in London, bears indications of having been written in Massachusetts. There is throughout the tract a constant effort to intimate the contrary, which awakens more than suspicion. An intimate acquaintance is disclosed with transactions in the Province, while we hear," " "" we likewise hear," are expressions used in respect to them with needless repetition, as if for a blind. "You will do well to resolve that you will never sign addresses of this nature till you have had opportunity in some Convention, if you have such things, for we are strangers to your methods." (Deplorable State, 2,29.) I doubt very little that Cotton Mather was more or less concerned in the composition. It has no little of his smartness and pedantry in its style. "If you'll permit such as are no clergymen to address you with stories out of old councils, we could tell you that the First Council of Orleans, A. D. 52, made a strange decree," &c. (Ibid.) The spite against Leverett is suggestive of his unsuccessful and mortified rival. "It is reported by some now in London that Dudley has made that Tory lawyer to be President of their College. No question but the lawyer will bring up hopeful young divines, to be sent hither for my Lord of London to ordain them. We hear that they have sung the Gloria Patri in their College hall already, and that several of their clergy stood up at it. An auspicious beginning under their lawyer President, who, we also hear, was chosen a lieutenant of their artillery company at Boston, the last summer. Such reports as these make their friends here think that the people in New England are running mad." (24, 25, 29.) 2 Povey wrote to him from London that he must expect to be superseded; and Sir Henry Ashurst, in a letter of May 10, 1707, said, "Though he may meet with some with you that will sacrifice their country and consciences to his interests, I can assure you he will not meet with any such here. I doubt not but in a little time he will be succeeded by a more worthy person, and the country freed from his oppressions." (Hutch., II. 161.) crimes alleged, his prudence would have been likely to deter him. It is plausibly argued by Governor Hutchinson that, if his connection with the shipment of goods to be sold to the French by Rouse and others had amounted to any thing more than connivance, the accomplices would scarcely have failed to denounce him when he approved those Acts of the General Court which condemned them to imprisonment and fines.1 Yet his inclination to protect Rouse is suspicious; and so strong was the persuasion of his criminality and of his cunning, that there were those who believed it to have been by his management that the business had been submitted to the General Court, so as to keep it from the cognizance of the common-law courts, where the investigation would have been conducted with more method and vigor, and the verdict would have been more decisive. 1 Hutch. Hist., II. 162. CHAPTER X. Dudley Mathers. 1 Ir has been told above, that, hostile as the Mathers had been to Dudley at the time of the Revolution, his arts and assiduities had won them over, and he was not without obligation to their good offices at court for his appointment to be Governor of Massachusetts. It was impossible, however, that the friendship thus concerted should be and the lasting. Neither party could be content with any thing short of absolute control within its own province, yet neither could consent to refrain from interference with the province of the other. Personal considerations belonging to the settlement of the new charter united with motives of public spirit to incline the Mathers to a popular interpretation of that instrument, to which the arbitrary biases of Dudley were constantly opposed. The consequence and power of the former materially depended on the stability of the primitive ecclesiastical constitutions of New England. Dudley, in his ten years of English life, had probably passed for a member of the Established Church. After his return to Massachusetts, his relations with the small circle of adherents to it in Boston had at least been amicable, and his friendships with Congregation alists were with those leading men among them, such as Colman, Leverett, and the Brattles, - who of late years had abandoned the ancient strictness. The unfriendliness which had thus grown up on the part of the ex- Harvard President and his son against the Governor proved College. of excellent service to the College in bringing about its re-establishment on the ancient basis. 2 1686. It was understood on all hands that, since the abrogation of the Colonial charter, the College had been defunct in law.1 Dudley, during the short term of his rule as President of the Colonial Council, made provisional arrangements for carrying on the institution, which Andros, during his government, did not disturb, further than to offer the affront of placing an Episcopal 1688. clergyman in the pulpit with the presiding academical dignitary on the day of the annual Commencement.3 Increase Mather, when in England on the business of the Colony, addressed himself successively to King James and to King William for favor to the College, but without result. The legislative proceedings had with reference to the institution during the administrations of Phips, Stoughton, and Bellomont have been related in a former chapter.5 4 After Mather's return from England and resumption of the Presidency he continued to live in Boston, as minister of the Second Church. This arrangement gave increasing dissatisfaction, and the General Court very soon passed a vote "that the President of Harvard College, for the time being, shall reside there, as hath been accustomed in time past." When after a year and a half 1693. Dec. 2. 4 Sibley, Biographical Sketches, &c., 424. 5 See above, 193–195. 6 Mass. Prov. Rec. 1695. he had taken no notice of this action, a vote of the House of Representatives expressed their" desire for Mr. June 5. Mather to go and settle at the College, that the College may not be destitute any longer of a settled President; but, if Mr. Mather do not settle there, then that the Corporation do propose some other meet person to the General Court, who may be treated with to settle there, that the College may no longer be destitute of a settled President." There is no record of a concurrence in this vote by the Council, and it did not move the President to a change of his purpose. Soon came intelligence of the rejection by the Privy Council of that new charter of the College under which Mather was acting. Under the provisional arrangement made by Stoughton, he was confirmed in office, and so continued till the end of the administration of Lord Bellomont. The General Court renewed their protestations against Dec. 8. his absence from Cambridge, and sent a committee to urge in a personal interview their impatience for his removal thither. He threatened to resign; but, Feb. 6. on reflection, resolved to refer the question to his Boston church, who refused to part with him.3 Oct. 12. 1698. 1699. 2 Contemporaneously with their solicitation to the King 1700. through Lord Bellomont, the General Court exJuly 11. pressed to the President with so much peremptoriness their determination that he should reside at the College, that he obtained the consent of his church, and removed accordingly. But, after a residence of only three months, he returned to Boston, and sent a letter to Stoughton," containing the reasons of his removal from Cambridge, as not having his health there, and desiring that another President may be thought of." After due deliberation, the General Court, recognizing that March 14. the constitution requires that the President reside Oct. 17. 1701. 1 See above, 193. 2 Quincy, Harvard University, I. 480. 3 Ibid., 97. 4 Ibid., 111. |