1693.
1694.

1695.

1700.

diverging towards the south from the true direction, when it came to reach her territory. Repeated proposals from her to unite in another survey were declined by the other party. It was urged by Connecticut that the new towns of Enfield and Suffield lay south of the legal border of Massachusetts and within her own. On the other part, the correctness of the ancient survey was insisted on; and it was further urged that, even if it should prove to be incorrect as to the disputed line of latitude, still it was understood to be correct at the time when King Charles gave Connecticut her charter, and must be considered as the line which was had in view when, in the charter, the northern boundary line of that Colony was described as being coincident with the southern boundary line of Massachusetts. For the present, it was found impossible to effect an agreement on the subject. Nor for the present was there any better success in establishing the western boundary. The line on the New York side had, many years before, been settled on paper; and King William's confirmation of it, which it had been thought prudent to solicit, was obtained. But the 1700. running of it and erecting monuments was still March 14. delayed.

1683.

Nov. 28

The question of the eastern boundary of Connecticut, . again revived, still seemed insoluble, if it was to be discussed as a question of interpretation. Nothing could well be plainer than that two successive royal charters gave the country between Narragansett Bay and Pawtucket River, the first to one Colony, the second to another. The decision of the commissioners who, towards the end of the reign of King Charles the Second, had reported adversely to the pretensions of Rhode Island by reason of the pri

1 Conn. Col. Rec., IV. 95, 136, die; Conn. Col. Rec., IV. 335. See 146, 155, 301, 319, 400. above, III. 440, note 3.

2 O'Callaghan, IV. 627 et seq., comp. Privy Council Register, sub

8 Corn Col. Rec., IV. 238, 243, 299, 399, see above. Vol. III. 428.

ority of the adverse title, had, it seems, not been acted upon by the Privy Council, and was not regarded as binding by that Colony. The strife accordingly was renewed, and was prosecuted as formerly, sometimes by mutual violence, sometimes by ineffectual negotiation. The Board of Trade recommended a further attempt at an Aug. 26. amicable settlement, and directed Lord Bellomont to use his endeavors to promote it.' He did so, but without avail; and nothing remained for him but to Sept. 26. advise the parties to send their agents to England to present their case to the Board.2

1697.

1699.

Though, when the despotism of Andros was subverted by the rising in Massachusetts, it became necessary for Rhode Island to organize some common government over her nine unquiet towns, the Revolution was by no means so joyful an event to her people as to those of the other Colonies of New England. Rhode Island had never been a place so little disorderly, and so little disagreeRhode able to live in, as under Andros's absolute sway; the Revolu- nor was he subject, within her bounds, to the same motives to act with rigor as those which dictated

Island after

tion.

his course in Massachusetts.

Rhode Island had with little reluctance yielded her charter, and with it her liberty, to King James; and to many of her most considerable citizens even that little reluctance was offensive.3 Of course Andros's hatred of Massachusetts did not harm his popularity in the sister Colony. When the deposed Governor broke gaol and ran away, it was to Rhode Island that he directed his steps. He was stopped and delivered to officers sent after him from Massachusetts, and his captors made a merit of

1689. Aug. 2.

4

1 Journal of the Board of Trade, sub die.

3 See above, Vol. III. 506.
4 O'Callaghan, III.614-617; comp

2 R. I. Rec., III. 327, 354, 379, Mass. Arch., XCVII. 248–256.

his arrest; but it is not unreasonable to doubt whether this would have been, had circumstances been such as to admit of his being suffered to pass without their being called to account. Letters written to London by influential citizens of the little Colony bewailed his removal as bringing them into a condition hard to be endured; and, on the other hand, he stood by them in England in that important controversy which they were maintaining against Connecticut. The lapse of eight months had given them opportunity to form a judgment respecting the probability that the new order of things would Jan. 30. prove stable, before they were prepared to report to the King what they had been doing.

1690.

Unsettled

ment.

When, "under a sense of their deplorable and unsettled condition," after the fall of Andros, they determined to have a Governor of their own as of old, state of the it was only on a third election that they found a governcandidate who would consent to attempt to rule them. The Quaker, Walter Clarke, the last Governor under the charter, having refused to resume his place, John Coggeshall, the last Deputy-Governor, remained at the head of the administration for several months, at the end of which time, Clarke persisting in his preference for retirement, and Christopher Almy also declining the unattractive honor of the chief magistracy, it was conferred on the Quaker, Henry Bull, who, how

1 R. I. Rec., III. 259.

2 They prayed (R. I. Rec., III. 258) that the King "would please, being Pater Patrio nostro, to extend his fatherly care," &c. When the freemen reconstituted the ancient government in May, 1689, they, "with all due and humble submission, made their humble address to the present supreme power of England," whatever that might turn out to be. They were "not only ignorant," they said, of what titles should

Feb. 27.

be given in this venture, but also "not so rhetorical as becomes such personages." They had resumed their charter government, being "certainly informed" that the Boston people had imprisoned Andros and his Counsellors, "for what cause best known to themselves." (Ibid.,

266.) "Rhetorical " accomplishments were clearly not all that had declined in Rhode Island since the days of Coddington, Williams, and John Clarke.

May 7.

ever, after a single year's service, resigned it, as did also John Coggeshall, who had filled the second place.1 The next Governor was another Quaker, John Easton, from the time of whose election the records contain no information on the subject for five years.2 That Easton's administration was not satisfactory or prosperous

1691.

1696.

1697.

may be partly inferred from his reporting to the Nov. 19. King that he could not furnish his Colony's contingent of troops, because he could not raise the necessary money. In the last year of this interval Caleb Carr was Governor, and he was succeeded by Walter Clarke, during whose administration the Legislature of Rhode May 6. Island was assimilated to those of the other Colonies of New England by a division into two branches, each with a negative on the other. When, in the next year, the office fell to Samuel Cranston, who afterwards was constantly re-elected to it for nearly thirty years till his death, the proper Quaker dynasty in Rhode Island may be said to have come to an end, though the Board of Trade was informed that "Mr. Cranston was one of the demi-Quakers only put in to serve the Quakers.” The Governor had an annual salary of from ten to thirty pounds, to which gratuities were occasionally added; the Deputy-Governor, of six pounds; and each Assistant, of four. Deputies in the General Assembly received three shillings for each day of service."

8

Difficulty and disturbances occurred in the collection of taxes. It was represented to the Board of Trade that the laws were "so meanly kept, and in such blotted March 8. and defaced books (having never yet any of them

1698.

1 R. I. Rec., III. 260, 261, 268, 271.

2 Ibid., 288. From October, 1690, to July, 1695, there is only one record of a General Assembly, that of August, 1692, when Phips's claim to command the militia was considered

R. I. Rec., III. 289. • Ibid., 304.

Ibid., 313.

Journal of the Board of Trade for Aug. 8, 1699.

7 R. I. Rec., III. 309, 345, 430. See, e.g., Ibid., 34, 324, 348.

been printed), that few of his Majesty's subjects were able to know what they were.' ." Randolph, who had no personal bias against the Rhode Islanders, reported that "neither judges, juries, nor witnesses were under any obligation;" his explanation of this unpleasant fact being that the management of the government (such as it was) was in the hands of Quakers and Anabaptists, who would take no oath. There was no public provision for schools. Like Connecticut, Rhode Island encouraged the post-office