foreign countries supplied abundant means for the purchase of English manufactures, which in the absence of that trade could not have been paid for; and, after all, a stern enforcement of the Navigation Laws upon an unwilling people was troublesome and expensive, even when the attempt at enforcement was not defeated by the artifices of parties concerned or by the contumacy of jurors. So that, through much of the time, the officious stubbornness of Randolph and his coadjutors, agents of the Board of Trade, led to nothing but disappointment to themselves and their masters, and irritation and suspicion in the Colonies. CHAPTER II. Provisional government THE emancipation from the tyranny of Governor Andros and of his infatuated master was an immense relief to New England; but it would have been without a parallel among political revolutions, if it had been followed at once by a satisfactory condition of affairs. In Massachusetts, the government which was set up was on all hands understood to be provisional merely. This admisof Massa- sion was unfortunate for the public repose, both chusetts. as indicating timidity on the part of the persons at the head of affairs, and as keeping alive a question which left the obligations of citizens undetermined. The case of Massachusetts differed from that of Rhode Island and Connecticut in the very important particular that her charter had been formally vacated by legal process. But this had been done with circumstances of such injustice, and so resembling those which in England had excited extreme resentment when the municipal corporations were the sufferers, that the new King and his servants would not probably have taken offence, had Massachusetts, like her two sister communities, reconstituted her ancient government as still of right existing; while the local administration would have derived respect and authority from the confidence displayed in that pretension.1 1 May 24, 1689 (see above, Vol. III. 589), the Magistrates resolved to assume the function urged upon them by the Delegates, " until by direction from England there be an orderly settlement of government;" and for greater explicitness they indorsed upon their vote, "It was declared by the gentlemen subscribing that they do not intend an assumption of charter government, nor would be so understood." This did not satisfy the Delegates; and, encouraged by the arrival, before the week's end, of Sir William Phips and of orders to proclaim the new King, they organized June 22 July 5. The first General Court constituted according to the ancient charter adjourned after a five weeks' ses- 1689. sion, having first declared the laws to be pro- July 13. visionally revived which were in force at the time of the inauguration of the Council under Dudley's presidency, instructed the judicial courts to resume their functions as exercised at that time, and confirmed subordinate officers, military and civil, in their places. This was all which for the present could be done; and things remained in a state of great uncertainty till, near the end of the year, Bradstreet was able to communicate to the Court a letter from the King giving authority to the persons now in office to "continue the administration of the government" till his further pleasure should be made known. His further pleasure was not announced till after nearly three years more; but meanwhile this order fortified the temporary government, and produced a more satisfactory condition of affairs. Dec. 3 Aug. 12. Instead of retaining their places by virtue of this mis sive, as it seems they would have been justified in doing, the Magistrates chose to interpret it as authority for maintaining the old charter government; and annual elections themselves as a House of Deputies, ment to promise that they would 1690 Feb. 12. were accordingly ordered and held for the present as in former times, resulting in three successive designations of Bradstreet and Danforth to the two highest offices. The General Court must have considered itself as increasing its chances for a renewal of the vacated charter when it modified the law for admission to the franchise, reducing the amount of the pecuniary qualification, and repealing the provision which required a testimonial to the candidate's religious character from his minister, a certificate from selectmen to the effect that he was "not vicious in life" being now recognized as an equivalent. Bradstreet was probably infirm in 1689. health during the first winter of his new adminis Dec. 4 -1690. May 28. tration, as he appears to have been absent from all the meetings of the Magistrates for six months. By the same conveyance which brought authority from England for a provisional reinstitution of the govNov. 24. ernment had come an order to the Governor to send Andros and his fellow-prisoners to England. 1689. Dan forth and four others were directed by the House Dec. 7. to draw up complaints against them, in order to an arraignment before the Privy Council. Elisha Cooke and Thomas Oakes were appointed to proceed to England, to be associated with Mather in his agency.* 1 Mass. Col. Rec., sub die. 2 Randolph wrote to the Commissioners of Customs, Dec. 12, 1689, that, though the order for the conveyance of the prisoners by the first ship to England had been received nearly three weeks before, no notice of it had been given them, "nor had they liberty to go out of gaol to provide necessaries."—Jan. 29, 1690, Bradstreet wrote to Lord Shrewsbury that he had given orders for sending the prisoners to England by the Rose frigate. As to domestic affairs, he expressed his fears of trouble from the Indians in the spring. (British Colonial Papers.) 3 Jan. 2, 1690, Stoughton, Gedney, Brown, and others, were added by the Council to this Committee. (Mass. Col. Rec., sub die.) Depositions against Andros are in the Archives of Massachusetts, CXXVII. 143, &c. Mass. Col. Rec. for Dec. 3, 1689, Jan. 18 and 24, 1690. — Elisha Cooke was now fifty-two years old. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1657, and became a physician, but took to politics early. In 1681 and 1682 he was a Representative from Boston in the General Court, and espoused the popular cause so warmly as to occasion a special report against him from Randolph to his masters in England. Unsettled chusetts. The degree of good order which prevailed during this long suspension of a legitimate government gave evidence, on the whole, of the peaceable disposition of the people, and of their attachment to the leaders whom they had empowered for the existing crisis.' But it was impossible that quiet and content should be complete, while questions of such moment were unsettled. Would condition the old charter be restored, with or without alter- of Massaation of its grants? If not, what frame of government would succeed it? What degree of self-government would be allowed? What force would be conceded, not only to acts of the existing provisional authority, but to the colonial legislation of two generations, during which the powers conveyed by the charter had been differently understood in the Colony and in England? Nor was there wanting a party spirit to take advantage of the solicitude excited by such uncertainties. Besides persons who were prompted by considerations of direct personal advantage, there was a class not inconsiderable for numbers or capacity, among the recent immigrants especially," (See above, Vol. III. 354, note 2.) In 1683 he was Speaker of the House: and in the three following years he was an Assistant, taking the place of Dudley, whose sycophancy to the court had caused him to be left out. Cooke in his turn was passed over, when Dudley became President. Cooke was rich and well connected. He married a daughter of Governor Leverett. He was forward in the measures for the deposition of Andros, and became one of the Council for the Safety of the People and Conservation of the Peace. He was now again an Assistant in the provisional government, to which dignity Oakes also was raised, while abroad, in the spring of 1690. Oakes had before been Speaker of the House. He was younger than Cooke, being five years after him in college, but as early as 1682 had distinguished himself sufficiently on the patriot side to be included with him in Randolph's maledictions. (Ibid.) Oakes, like Cooke, was a physician. Lawyers do not appear in the House till after more than another generation. 1 For divers weeks from the arrest of Andros the Colony continued without any pretence to civil government. Yet, through the mercy of God, all things were under such good inclinations among us that every man gave himself the laws of good neighborhood, and little or nothing extravagant was all that while done." (A. B., "Account of the Late Revolution," &c., 11.) 2 Oct. 26, 1689, Bradstreet writes to Lord Shrewsbury of the efforts of many strangers that have come in amongst us" to embarrass the gov 66 |