if they will act, then to know what instruments they would improve, and what money they can raise; and must also know that if a patent can be procured, it will not take up less than five hundred pounds sterling, which will take nearly seven hundred pounds of our money.'

1691.

Renewal

"Though the Colony labored under many inconveniences, being small in number, low in estate, and great public charges," it preferred still greater straits to a loss of its independence.' A hundred pounds sterling March 3. were "sent unto Sir Henry Ashurst, towards the charge of procuring a charter," besides gratuities to himself of fifty pounds, and of twenty-five pounds each to Mather and Wiswall. But it was too late for any effective endeavor in that direction. Wiswall naturally thought that, in comparison with himself and his meritorious Colony, Massachusetts and her agents were treated with undue consideration. "You know," he wrote home, "who it is that is made to trot after the Bay horse." Phips, while in England, had not been forgetful of the business with which he was charged, relatof the plan ing to a renewal of the expedition against CanQuebec. ada. In the King's absence he presented a memorial to the Queen, setting forth that, in order to secure his conquest of Nova Scotia, it was indispensable to send over a frigate, and a quantity of warlike ammunition," and that "the inhabitants of New England had their hearts filled with thankfulness and zeal for his Majesty's service by reason of the preparaDec. 11. tion and passing of a charter, and would set out the frigate at their own expense with a number of war 1 In disgust against the proba- 2 Wiswall's Letter to Hinckley, bility of annexation to New York, in Mass. Hist. Col., XXXVI. 299. people in Plymouth refused to pay The pun, however, is as old as Cudrates. (Ibid., 208.) Many times worth's time. (Backus, History, distraint was resorted to and resisted. &c., 319; comp. Plymouth Rec., VI. (Comp. Hinckley's letters to Mather 259, 260.) Wiswall, with Oakes and and Wiswall, in Mass. Hist. Col., Cooke, arrived in Boston, October 23. XXXV. 287, 292.) (Sewall's Diary.)

against

June 30.

Nov. 10.

and other ships, not only to preserve Nova Scotia, but also to reduce Quebec and the other parts of Canada." He prayed to be placed in command of an expedition for these purposes, and he presented the " names of harbors and races in the eastern part of New England and in Nova Scotia fit for settlement in townships, every town consisting of at least thirty thousand acres of land." 1 But he does not appear to have obtained much attention to this scheme, and not improbably his own interest in it may have abated when other interests were awakened in his mind by his recent high promotion.

He still lingered with Mather in England. Perhaps they did not incline to disturb the existing government of the Colony before the time when in due course it would be dissolved by the expiration of the political year. Besides, Mather liked to lengthen out his stay in a society from which he received much flattering attention, and he may well be supposed to have shrunk from the cold reception which he too well knew awaited him at his home.

2

May 4.

Inaugura

At length, the Governor, with his colleague in 1692. the agency, arrived in Boston. The easy transfer May 14. of the chief magistracy to him had been provided for. Bradstreet, at his last inauguration, only a few days before, had taken "the oath of his place or office for this year, or until there be a settlement of gov ernment from the crown of England." At the town-house, whither the new Governor was con- tion of the ducted with imposing civil and military parade, the new charter was first read in the presence of the General Court, and then the Governor's commission. The oaths of office were administered first to him, and then by him to the Counsellors, and writs were issued for an election of Deputies to come together in the following month. Before separating, the Court appointed "a day of solemn thanksgiving to Almighty God

66

1 British Colonial Papers.

Provincial
Charter.

May 24.

2 General Court Records, sub die.

for granting a safe arrival to his Excellency our Governor, and the Reverend Mr. Increase Mather, who have industriously endeavored the service of this people, and have brought over with them a settlement of government in which their Majesties have graciously given us distinguishing marks of their royal favor and goodness." With such courteous words were the chagrins of the time glozed over. One thing was certain, that, in a sense different from that of earlier times, Massachusetts was now a dependency of the British crown.

The Earl of Nottingham was assured by Phips (Letter of May 29, in British Colonial Papers) of "the good disposition of the people; " and Mather wrote to him (June 23, Ibid.) that "the generality of their Majesty's subjects received with thankfulness the favors granted to them by the new charter." (Comp. Mass.

1

Hist. Col., XXXII. 307.) In the following May, Mather preached the annual election sermon before the government. He prefaced the printed edition of it with a defence of his conduct in the agency, entitled Address to the Inhabitants of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay. (Whitmore, Andros Tracts, II. 303, &c.)

CHAPTER IV.

THE aged and feeble Bradstreet must have been quite as well pleased to retire from the government of the Province as his enterprising successor was to assume it. The management of the war had been too much for his failing strength. The administration of the last three years had been honest and careful, and in the circumstances the degree of good order which was maintained was highly creditable to the people. But it was impossible that a government which from the beginning had been declared by itself to be only temporary should be capable of a vigorous rule; and respect for it, though partially reinforced by the royal order in the summer of the Revolution, had been again weakened during the unexpectedly long agitation of the question of a permanent settlement.

The war had languished for a time after the defeat of the invasion of Canada. The strenuous Governor French and of that country would have followed up his advan- Indian war. tage by a movement against New York, and he applied to his court for reinforcements for that purpose; but he was told that the King had now employment nearer home for all his forces, and for the present it was necessary that his views for New France should be confined to measures of defence.1 While the exhausted condition of Massachusetts forbade a renewal of offensive operations on her part, the French Governor's chief immediate solicitude was for the

1 His Majesty not being in a condition at present," &c. (Letter of the King to the Count de Fron

tenac, of April 7, 1691, in O'Cal laghan, IX. 494; comp. Charlevoix, I. 528, 561.)

conduct of the Iroquois Indians; and the year after the re pulsed invasion was mostly passed by him in a succession of unsatisfactory negotiations and indecisive hostilities with that crafty, capricious, and formidable confederacy,' though New England was at the same time annoyed with a desultory maritime war.

1690.

Nov. 29.

Operations in Maine.

1691.

Though the result of Colonel Church's expedition into Maine had disappointed expectation, it appeared October. to have been not without a salutary effect in alarming the Indians in that quarter; for it was scarcely over, when some of their chiefs appeared at the town of Wells, with proposals for a pacification. A treaty was accordingly made between three commissioners from Boston and six representatives of the Abenaqui tribes. The Indians restored ten English captives, and agreed to deliver up their remaining prisoners at Wells and contract for a permanent peace at the end of five months, and meanwhile to abstain from hostilities and to give notice of any which they might know to be meditated by the French. On the day appointed, May 1. President Danforth, with some members of his Council and a guard, came to meet the chiefs at Wells; but, the favorable season for their inroads having returned, the savages had changed their minds, and, after waiting for them a sufficient time, Danforth withdrew to York. A reinforcement of thirty-five men sent by him to Wells reached that place in season to repel an attack which, within an hour after their unexpected arrival, was made upon it by a band of two hundred Indians. The defeated party fell upon an outlying settlement of York, which they satisfied their vengeance by burning, along with a vessel anchored there, of which they massacred the greater portion of the crew. Their further movements were for the present arrested by a detachment of four companies who, landing in their rear at the 1 Charlevoix, II 92 et seq.

June 9.

July.