1695. poor; and when he applied for troops, he was answered that the Province was overtasked, and could not hold its ground without the help of Massachusetts; which was not only very near the truth, but what they wished to have represented at court, that it might weigh in favor of that annexation which they never ceased to desire. The government was parsimoniously supported by a duty on imported goods, and an excise on wine and spirits, levied from year to year by the Assembly. The Lieutenant-Governor moved them urgently to do something better. They replied that their means seemed exhausted in providing Nov. 9. for their defence, but that, if possible, they would oblige him, "provided he and the Council would join with them in petitioning the King to annex the Province to Massachusetts." They made him no allowance. Allen had guarantied to him a salary of two hundred and fifty pounds a year, which, on Usher's application at the end of three years, he refused to pay. Usher then asked to be relieved, either by the Governor in person, or by the appointment of some successor in his own place. Without his knowledge, he had been anticipated in this request. An application, favored by the Governor,3 had been made for the appointment of William Partridge, Treasurer of the Province, to be Lieutenant-Governor. Part- Governor ridge, a ship-builder, who had large connexions put an affront upon the King's commission, as in that of fourteenth Luke, 28, 29, 30 verses. Have spent of cash out of my own estate about £300." (Letter of Usher to the Council, Aug. 11, 1694, in British Colonial Papers.) "It being now about four years since I arrived with his Majesty's royal commission, and at the charge of the Province have not had a house provided to lie in, nor one meal's meat, nor one drop of drink." (Speech of Lieutenant-Governor Usher, Sept. 24, 1696, in N. H. Provincial Papers, III. 46.) 1 Ibid., II. 120; III. 35. Lieutenant Partridge. 2 N. H. Provincial Papers, III. 47.- Feb. 16, 1697, Shadrach Walton, of New Hampshire, told the credulous Lords that "there were fifty thousand fighting men in the Massachusetts government," while there were "but between seven hundred and eight hundred in New Hampshire. The extent of New Hampshire," he said, "is about fifteen or sixteen miles square." (British Colonial Papers.) 8 Privy Council Register for June 8, 1696. 1697. 1696. in England with the dealers in masts and timber, went out to further the movement, and to Usher's January surprise returned with a commission to succeed him, obtained six months before from the Lords June 6. Justices, -the King being at that time on the continent. The newly-constituted Board of Trade had been influenced by Sir Henry Ashurst in favor of the appointment. 1697. 66 By this time Usher had changed his mind as to the attractiveness of his office. At all events, an involuntary retirement was distasteful to him. In consequence of having come out without his instructions, or from failure in some other preliminary, Partridge was not ready to take his official oath. The Council and Assembly, however, held a meeting, and proceeded to some acts which Usher, writing of them from Boston to England, described as the 2 Piscataqua Rebellion." The Lords of Trade Aug. 3. instructed him to retain his place, till Partridge should take the oaths, or Lord Bellomont, who was to be Governor of New Hampshire, as well as of Massachusetts, should arrive in America. Accordingly he went Dec. 13. to Portsmouth, where he proclaimed the peace of Ryswick. But his resumed sway was short-lived. The next day his successor assumed the government,* Dec. 14. and Usher went back, a private man, to his Boston counting-room. The Assembly presently sent to the Lords of Trade their thanks to the King for the new Feb. 3. appointment, and their assurance, as to Usher, 1698. 5 1 N. H. Provincial Papers, I. 209. 2 Ibid., III. 77, 78; British Colonial Papers, under the dates of Sept. 30, Oct. 8, 1696, Feb. 16, Feb. 18, June 8, 1697, and Dec. 9, 1701. 3 N. H. Provincial Papers, II. 216, 217. Ibid., 259, 261. Dec. 31, 1692, a Committee of the Council of Massachusetts, with 3 Stoughton at its head, reported that Usher's account, as Treasurer, extending from May 25, 1686, to July 6, 1690, charged the Province with over £5000, of which sum only £851 was rightly his due, the rest having been paid by him without authority to Sir Edmund Andros. (British Colonial Papers.) that "there had been no disturbance but only what Mr. Usher had endeavored to give." 1 While Lord Bellomont remained in New York, his commission for New Hampshire not being yet published, Allen came over, and assumed the Sept. 15. chief magistracy of New Hampshire. Usher also ap Nov. 29. 1699. Jan. 7. peared there, and claimed to be admitted to a seat 1 N. H. Provincial Papers, II. 267. — Usher's want of personal dignity provoked gross affronts. The Lieutenant-Governor acquainted the Board that Richard Torlington, constable of New Castle, had offered a great contempt to himself in impressing his saddle, when he had noticed that it was the LieutenantGovernor's." (Provincial Papers, II. 134; see 199 for another anecdote, rot transcribable.) — His invariable style of speaking and writing had a ludicrous peculiarity, consisting partly in the omission of connecting words. The following is a specimen of his characteristic manner: "Acts of Parliament ought not to be laws for plantations, unless had representatives in Parliament, if may write plainly, are not for kingly but for commonwealth government, which pray libera nos." (Usher to Lords of Trade, Dec. 12, 1700, in British Colonial Papers; comp. N. H. Prov. Papers, II. 595, 675; III. 332, 598.) Oct. 17, 1697, the Council of New Hampshire sent a messenger to New York to wait on the Governor. govJuly 31. Lord Bello- mont in shire. "Take good advice," he was in- 3 Ibid., 280-293.-The disappointed Governor was disturbed by the "irregular proceedings and growing insolence of the Lieutenant-Governor, W. Partridge, and three or four more of the Council," and thought that they should be sent for to England "to reward them according to their merits." (Letter of Allen, of Nov. 28, 1698, to the Lords of Trade, in British Colonial Papers; comp. letter of same to same, of Jan. 14, 1689.) 4 Lord Bellomont wrote to the 1700. that, in token of their good will, the Assembly gave him five hundred pounds.1 He returned from New Hampshire to Boston after two or three weeks, leaving Partridge at the head of the administration, his own commission having superseded that of Allen. By letter he advised the Province to provide materials for a fort in June 6. Portsmouth Harbor, at a cost estimated at more than six thousand pounds, by an engineer whom he employed. The Assembly replied that they had never, when the exigency was greatest, been able to raise more than a thousand pounds in a year, and that they were now especially disabled by reason of their debt incurred in defending themselves against the Indians, and of the insecurity of their property, occasioned by the claim of Allen; and they went on to complain that, after spending more money in the defence of the border than their estates were now worth, they should be called upon, as they had been, to send men to protect the frontier of New York, -a Colony in which, they said, their savage enemies found a refuge, and a market for their spoils.3 They professed, however, their disposition to do any thing which he should esteem it reasonable to demand, when he should have acquainted himself with their poverty.* The Lords of Trade looked to New Hampshire as a source of supply of naval stores for the use of the royal navy, and instructed the new Governor accordingly, who Lords of Trade (September 9), expressing his satisfaction with his reception in New Hampshire, and giving an account of the factions which had there arisen. (British Colonial Papers.) 1 The bilious Usher wrote to the Lords of Trade (September 21), "For a sin-offering they presented my Lord with £500, judging by it their crimes may be obliterated." (British Colonial Papers.) N. H. Provincial Papers, III. 96. Of a force of 1350 troops which the home government had ordered to be held in readiness against the Five Nations, the contingent of New Hampshire was 40 men. Massachusetts was to send 350, and Virginia 240. New York, which was to be protected, was to furnish but 200. (Farmer's Belknap, 157.) N. H. Provincial Papers, 101103, 106-110. His disgust Aug. 1. entered into the scheme with his characteristic zeal. But he found himself "obstructed by some cross accidents," among which were the mismanagement of two agents of the Admiralty, the pending Indian war, and the "distractions" occasioned by Allen's proceedings in "turning people out of their properties without process of law." He refused to enter into the controversy with Allen respecting the proprietorship of the soil, referring it to the judicial courts which were instituted in conformity with his advice.2 What he had seen of Allen had affected him with profound disgust. That adventurer had attempted to bribe him to "favor his cause." with Allen. First he offered him, in general terms, " a handsome recompense." Then he proposed to "divide the Province" with him, and to match his daughter with a younger son of the Earl, endowing her with "ten thousand pounds in money. . .. But I told him," wrote Bellomont," that I would not sell justice, if I might have all the world." Allen accompanied the Earl part of the way on his departure from New Hampshire to repeat the offer, and came to Boston to press it yet again" with more earnestness than 1700. ever," representing that the lands claimed by him February. were "worth twenty-two thousand pounds per annum at threepence per acre quit-rent." Bellomont wrote to the Lords of Trade that " Usher, indulging his choleric temper," had refused to take his place in June 22. 1 Letters of Bellomont to the Lords of Trade, of May 25 and Dec. 14, 1698, in N. H. Provincial Papers, II. 344, 345; comp. letter of the same to the same, of Jan. 22, 1700, Ibid., 318; comp. III. 116, 120; O'Callaghan, IV. 668. N. H. Provincial Papers, II. 316. • Memorandum of Lord Bellomont, dated June 19, 1700, in British Colonial Papers. Three days after, he wrote letters to the same effect to Aug. 8. Aug. 17. June 11. the Lords of Trade (O'Callaghan, IV. 673), and to Secretary Vernon (British Colonial Papers). "I hope among you," he says, in this last letter, "Mr. Blathwayt will be cross-bit by this bargain of his with Allen. The seizing Colonel Allen's papers would discover this villanous bargain." "Colonel Allen's pretension to New Hampshire, and all other claims derived from Mason, are an abomination and mystery of iniquity." |