at Cambridge, which is now altered by his removal from thence, and to the intent that a present necessary oversight be taken of the College," proceeded to vote "that in case of Mr. Mather's refusal, absence, sickness, or death, Mr. Samuel Willard is nominated to be Vice-President, and invested with like powers and authority in all respects. Upon this the President again removed to Cambridge, but after three months went back a second time to Boston. He wrote a letter for the Assembly, announcing his purpose not to return "when the College is in such an unsettled state," and expressing his "earnest desire that the General Court would, as soon as may be, think of another President." June 30. Sept. 6. The House was still unwilling to part with Mather, or to consider it hopeless that he should revise his decision; and, after some ineffectual negotiation with Willard, minister of the South Church in Boston, who was found to be also unwilling to transfer his residence to Cambridge, they sent up to the Council a Resolve "that Mr. Increase Mather be desired to take care of and reside at the College." The Council, in which Elisha Cooke, Mather's ancient antagonist, was now the leading spirit, refused to concur. By a Resolve which they substituted, and which was concurred in by the House, " Mr. Samuel Willard, nominated Vice-President of the College, was desired to take the oversight of the College and the students there, and to manage the affairs thereof as he has proposed in his answer to the Court; namely, to reside there one or two days and nights in a week, and to perform prayers and expositions in the Hall."2 Willard continued to administer the College six years, until his death; retaining the title of Vice President, and residing through the whole time in Boston.3 1703. When Dudley came to his government, Samuel Willard was in the second year of his official service, and Cotton Mather was aspiring to succeed him at the head of the College, when the time for his retirement should come. The wives of Dudley and Willard were sisters, and this affinity may have done something to quicken the new Governor's interest in the management of the institution. He took an early opportunity to say to the GenMarch 11. eral Court that he should "very freely" lay before the Queen any thing that might appear to concern its welfare. "I am sorry," he said, "for the mistake of this government, at any time, in that affair;" and when the House asked an explanation of that stricture, he replied thatthe mistakes he referred to were a first, second, and third draft of a charter of incorporation for the College, sent to England, and there refused.”1 The ancient influence of the Mathers in the affairs of the College was never recovered. Cotton Mather, who exclusion of Dr. Mather" from the Presidency. The opinion is corroborated by language of Cotton Mather in his memoir of his father (Parentator, 173); and it is especially remarkable that the condition of residence, so insisted on in the case of Mather, was dispensed with as to his successor. But it is to be remembered that the state of the College was such as did not encourage an eminent clergyman to connect himself permanently with it at the cost of leaving his parochial charge, and that the votes which had been passed relating to the Vice-Presidency of Willard admitted of a choice of Mather, Willard, or any other person to be President, whenever the existing objections to a residence at Cambridge should cease. During Mather's Presidency of sixteen years the College sent out 210 graduates. 1 Mass. Prov. Rec. 2 2 It was not, however, yet by any means extinct. Owing to causes which it is in vain to conjecture (though possibly it may have been a mere expression of resentment of Dudley's freedom of speech five days before), only a year and a half of Willard's administration as VicePresident had passed, when the Representatives voted unanimously (March 16, 1703) "that the Rev. Mr. Cotton Mather be treated with, in order to be obtained for a resident President of Harvard College." The Council returned the vote non-concurred, "with the message that the Board could not accept a President named by that House." (Mass. Prov. Rec.) This transaction confirms the suggestion made above, that the arrangement with Willard was understood all along to be only temporary, and subject to be superseded at any time by the election of a President. 1705. Jan. 2. had not attended a meeting of the Corporation since the accession of Vice-President Willard, was regarded as having "abdicated," and his place at that Board was given to one of the Brattles, a favorer of the recent religious movement which had led to the establishment of the Fourth Congregational Church of Boston. Two years passed before the question of a charter for the College was resumed. Then "his Excellency intimated to the Council that, by letters from England, there was encouragement to hope that a charter of incorporation might be obtained, . if proper application was made; and the draft proposed in his late Majesty's reign was ordered to be laid on the table to be read." Again the question slept. Probably no satisfactory compromise could be arranged between the religious party which represented the primitive ideas of New England and that which had recently risen into importance by the maintenance of more liberal views; besides which, it must have been believed by both these parties that the Queen would not consent to such provisions as both desired for the exclusion of the Church of England from interference in the concerns of the institution. The death of Vice-President Willard revived 1707. attention to the question. To the infinite disgust Sept. 12. 1 Sixty-six young men were educated at the College during Willard's uneventful administration. In matters of church doctrine and discipline he sympathized with the Mathers; but their arrogance offended and repelled him, and in personal relations he was constantly drawn closer to the party of Leverett, Colman, and the Brattles. The reader curious about such details of ancient manners may see in the published Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for 1861 (160, 161) the bills of fare for a Commencement dinner in Willard's time, and for the dinner at Leverett's installation. For that of 1703, the "hens and chickens" cost £2 7s.; the beef, £5 9s. 6d. ; lamb, £2 6s. 8d.; bacon, 2s. 6d. ; four geese and four tongues, £1 2s. 8d.; and eighteen gallons of wine were provided, at the cost of £2 18s. 7d., besides four barrels of beer and one of cider. There was a supply of carrots and turnips, apples, oranges, and cherries, but of no other vegetable or fruit. A charge of candles indicates that the festivity extended into the evening. For the like provision in 1708 (comp. Quincy, I. 498), when the whole cost was only of Cotton Mather, the Corporation elected John Leverett to be President. The Representatives, after considerable delay and opposition, -for the party of the Mathers was still potent, granted him a salary; and the Dec. 6. two branches concurred in a vote which, referring to the ancient charter now suspended for more than twenty years, directed "the President and Fellows of the said College from time to time to regulate themselves according to the rules of the constitution by the Act prescribed, and to exercise the powers and authorities thereby granted for the government of the House and support thereof."1 The Governor, whether expecting to escape the observation of the government at home, or to satisfy it of the expediency of such action, approved the bill. The English Ministry never took steps to disturb the arrangement; and the College charter, confirmed by an article in the Constitution of the Commonwealth at the time of the separation from Great Britain, has remained in undisputed force to this day. 1780. 2 The Governor's approbation - if we are not rather to say, his active promotion of the choice of President Leverett, together with the establishment of the President's friends in the College Corporation, put an end to any thing that remained of simulated courtesy in the intercourse For £10 6s. 6d., whereas on the former for 1867, 502, 504; comp. Pierce, History of Harvard University, 80, 81.) 1 Mass. Prov. Rec. 2 Is it possible that the Governor, now in desperate trouble with the local government (see above, p. 302), hoped to make friends by doing an act which would be extremely acceptable to them; which he could take time to excuse or palliate to his superiors across the water; and which, in the last resort, it was in their power to disavow and undo, so that in no case eventual harm to them need result? between him and the Mathers, father and son.' Hence forward there was no course for the latter party but war to the knife. The circumstances of the moment favored them; for it was the moment of intense exasperation against Dudley on account of his alleged malpractices in Nova Scotia. Increase Mather wrote him a frank letter, charging him with "bribery and unright- 1708. eousness" in arresting a process in the Admiralty, Jan. 20. till satisfied with a sum of money; with plotting against the liberties of the Province, a crime proved by a letter of his son Paul; with "hypocrisy and falseness in the affairs of the College," shown by his consent to the revival of that charter, which for a long time he had declared to be dead; with "the guilt of innocent blood" in the cases of Leisler and Milburn; and with "ordinarily forsaking the worship of God," and spending his Sunday afternoons "with some persons reputed very ungodly." Two considerations, said the ex-President, prompted him to "discharge his conscience with these rebukes. One is, in that you have sometimes said, that if ever you had a spiritual father, I was the man; and there was a time when I encouraged the church, with whom I have been laboring in the work of the Lord these forty-six years and more, to call you to be my assistant in the ministry. The other is, that a letter thought to have been written by me induced the late King William to give you a commission for the government here.” The ex-President's son wrote to the Governor on the same day, in a yet more animated strain. Having hitherto "in divers letters sought out acceptable words," he says, your Excellency now compels me to see that the schemes 1 Nov. 25, 1707, the Council sent four of its members to Cotton Mather to inquire respecting a letter which he was said to have addressed, Oct. 2, 1706, to Sir Charles Hobby, animadverting upon Dudley, and respect ing other letters of his to Dudley himself. The next day the Committee reported to the Board that they had had a conference with him. (Council Record.) |