1719.

wonted diligence and steadiness to proceed in the public business"; and he consented to retract his resignation. But as yet the favor of the deputies was fickle. Two years more brought the crisis of the governor's position. An attempt was made, by the nominaton of Lieutenant-Governor Gold, to supersede him in the chief magistracy; and, apparently for the first time in her history, Connecticut witnessed a disputed election. The attempt not only failed disgracefully, but brought a powerful reaction to the governor's side. Hartford, angry with him for his influence in determining the place of the College, set aside her two deputies to the General Court, and sent her two ministers in their place. One of them was not only not admitted to his seat, but was put on trial for "defaming his Majesty's government in this colony," by charging the governor "with the breach of the sixth and eighth commandments"; while Major Fitch, the leader of the discontented party, was brought to retract publicly his calumnious words, and ask the governor's forgiveness for them. And thenceforward the course of Saltonstall's administration was tranquil to its close. Its wisdom. and vigor moulded the sentiments of a transition period, and no man memorable on the bright roll of Connecticut worthies did more to establish for her that character which was indicated by the name, appropriated to her, generation after generation, of "the land of steady habits."

May.

The reader of this volume has had constant occasion to observe that, since the Revolution which overthrew the administration of Governor Andros and the government of King James the Second, the great early questions of New England politics had become obsolete. It might be, indeed, that the Protestant settlement of the English monarchy would after all be overthrown, and the despotic rule of the Stuart dynasty be re-established. But, at all events, for the present there was no danger of the ascendency of a Popish policy in the British Cabinet, and the legal toleration for dissenters which came in with the Prince of Orange, and was not withdrawn under his successors, was enough, imperfect system as it was, to set the colonists at rest as to the safety of their religious freedom. And, as they had recovered and preserved the right of legislating for themselves under certain restrictions, the complete bearing and force of which were not at first ascertained, it seemed that they might promise themselves security against the repetition of such abuses as had driven their ancestors from England, and might apply themselves with contented diligence to the ordinary pursuits of life, as communities do that are undisturbed by political injuries or apprehensions.

Under the new organization, whatever of political force survived was concentrated in the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The few and feeble towns of New Hampshire constituted a

royal province, unprotected by a charter, and lying at the King's mercy, except so far as Englishmen might be held entitled to the protection of English law in any and all circumstances. Plymouth no longer existed but as a part of Massachusetts. The small and ill-compacted population of Rhode Island had no policy of self-protection, except that of sycophancy to the English court, and of those disputes with its neighbors in which it might promise itself the favor of the home government, whose obvious policy it was to strengthen the feeble colony at the expense of those which were capable of offering more opposition to encroachments on the part of the crown. Connecticut, with her charter safe, and entitled by it, like Rhode Island, to choose all her own rulers, and within certain limits to conduct her own legislation, had little to keep her relation to the mother-country in mind. Theoretically she could not make laws "repugnant to the laws of England"; but there was no effective provision for bringing her enactments under the revisal of the King's government, and, unless she allowed herself in such imprudence in respect to the English laws of trade as would alarm the cupidity of English merchants, and stimulate them to go before the Ministry with complaints, there was nothing to trouble her complete repose, or to prevent her people from passing lives of industrious tranquillity, unmolested by any public cares beyond that of providing for a fair and com

fortable domestic administration. Even French and Indians did not touch the sheltered villages of Connecticut. Often she did her part not illiberally in aid of Massachusetts and even of New Hampshire, but no Indian war-path reached so far as to the dwellings of her people.

On Massachusetts, therefore, devolved substantially the protection of the interests and the principles of New England in the decades that elapsed between the Revolution of the seventeenth century and the Revolution of the eighteenth. From the same causes, Massachusetts had the same relief as her sister colonies from the most fretting anxieties of earlier times. She was not subject, like New Hampshire, to the arbitrary discretion of the King's ministers. Like Rhode Island and Connecticut, she had a charter; though, unlike theirs, the privileges which it bestowed were hampered with onerous conditions. She had not, like them, the right to choose her own chief executive officers, but must receive them from unsympathizing men, ignorant of her affairs and wants, thousands of miles away. She had the reputation of being rich enough to be able to make the government over her a profitable job, on which account it was sought by one needy adventurer after another. Her recording-officer, appointed by the King, might be expected to fulfil strictly his duty, prescribed by the charter, of reporting her enactments to the Privy Council, by which body it was not to be supposed that they would be regarded with a

favorable eye. Her governor, a placeman of the King, had a material function in constituting one branch of her Legislature. Through him, their representative and agent, the British Ministry had the nomination of all officers employed in the administration and execution of the law, and the power of arresting all obnoxious legislation.

Contemplating the dangers which lay, not hidden but patent, in such provisions, the observer of these times is less surprised at what at first view seems the captious jealousy entertained by Massachusetts of her royal governors. Phipps was one of her own people, - - a shallow man, with friendly intentions, and incapable of occasioning alarm, even if the public attention had not been engrossed with military movements. During the little time passed by Lord Bellomont in Massachusetts, he cultivated the good-will of its people; but even then they were on their guard, and, though they made him grants of unprecedented liberality, they refused the request he was instructed to make for a fixed annual allowance. While Stoughton was at the head of affairs, the critical questions between the province and the government at home were in abeyance. The peremptory demands of Dudley were met with a positive and immovable resistance. The province would not, at the dictation of the home. government, build a fort to protect an outlying waste, or establish salaries for the governor, lieu