April 10.

April 17.

A

agents on the one part, with Sir Henry Ashurst, who had before been acting with Mather under an appointment from Massachusetts, and on the other part Andros, Dudley, Randolph, West, Graham, Palmer, Sherlock, and others, being summoned before the Lords of the Committee, the agents asked for time to prepare their charges against King James's officers. week being allowed them for that purpose, the singular result followed that the agents declined to sign a statement of the grievances of their constituents, which had been prepared by Humphreys, their legal counsel. The Lords accordingly "agreed to offer their opinion to his Majesty that Sir Edmund Andros and the persons lately imprisoned in New England, and now attending his Majesty, be forthwith discharged and set at liberty; and that the paper or charge which had not been signed or owned might be dismissed." The Privy Council passed an order to that effect, and the culprits were accordingly set free. Their liberty was not all that they recovered. Before the end of the year, Dudley December. sailed for Boston with a commission as counsellor of New York; and Andros, though 1692. not until after longer waiting, was made Feb. 11. governor of Virginia.

April 24.

As to the abandonment of the complaints, the truth was that Somers, with whom the agents advised, thought it unsafe for them to pursue the investigation in the existing state of the home

government. Of the same nature with the charges against Andros were charges which could be brought against Lord Danby and others now at the height of power, but of a power felt by themselves to be insecure. It was of the first importance to avoid the opposition of these great men; but their good-will would be forfeited by persistence in a prosecution which would turn the public attention, now peculiarly sensitive, upon themselves.

The occupation of all minds during the summer with the momentous campaign in Ireland allowed the agents no good opportunity for a hearing, even if the influences of the new Parlia ment had been less unpropitious. It is likely, also, that they were willing to await the issue of the expedition against New France, which they hoped would be such as to recommend them to the royal favor. Their suit would be greatly facilitated if they should prove able to back it with intelligence of the conquest of Quebec by their constituents. Nor in that case might it prove necessary for them to stop with urging that Massachusetts desired the restitution of her old charter. They night perhaps further represent with confidence that it would be for the King's interest to add the conquered New France to her domain.

Meanwhile their opponents were not idle. The discharged prisoners had brought with them and now presented an “ Address of divers gen- 1689. tlemen, merchants and other inhabitants April 24.

of Boston and the adjacent parts, to the King, signed by seventeen persons, to appoint a governor and council to prevent further ruin and losses." "An ingenious merchant of Boston wrote that "a great many good ingenuous

May 16.

1690.

June 12,

men there, with some of the rising generation, were clearly for a general governor and to live under the laws of England"; and that "if they should have their charter, all the superstitious party, as they reckon the Church-of-England men, must move to New York" and elsewhere. Andros told his own story, largely and artfully, in an elaborate, memorial presented to the Lords of Trade. Randolph renewed his complaints against the irregularities June 19. of trade in New England. Carefully prepared memoirs on both sides were presented, the authorship of many of which is now unknown. One pamphlet exhibited an "Abstract of the printed laws of New England which are either contrary or not agreeable to the laws of England, which laws will immediately come in force in case the bill in Parliament for the restoring the charters of the plantations doth pass." Another undertook to show that the charters were "seized for the abuse of their power in destroying, not only the woollen and other manufactures, but also the very laws and navigation of England, and making themselves, as it were, independent of this crown."

The business of the agents made no progress

in the direction last followed. They turned their attention next to devising some method for bringing it, by a writ of error, before the Court of King's Bench, where Holt was presiding, with a view to a revision of the Chancery decree; but this was found impracticable. "There was now but one way left," Mather concluded, "for the settlement of New England, etc.,—to implore the King's royal favor. It was not in the King's power to reverse the judgment against the old charter; nevertheless, his Majesty had power to reincorporate his subjects, thereby granting them a charter which should contain all the old, with new and more ample privileges." When the King came back from the battle of the Boyne and his decisive campaign in Ireland, the Parliament was about to begin its second Oct. 2. session. As soon as its approaching prorogation released something of his attention, the agents proceeded with the method now determined on.

Sept. 6.

The King had his fixed notions on the principles of government, and they were far from being liberal. Probably the special subject of colonial administration was new to him. His Dutch compatriots had pursued the method of managing their colonies by incorporated companies, which had scarcely any subordination to the StatesGeneral beyond a liability to inspection. And as to desert, it is not likely that his partial or indifferent eye would distinguish unfavorably be

tween the rough dealers in gin and peltry at the mouth of the Hudson, and the representative of cultivated English thought and manners on the coast of Massachusetts Bay. The agents, in their ignorance of the temper and habits of their monarch, hoped not a little from the influence of his religious Queen.

1691.

Their petition for a new charter with additional provisions was referred to the law officers of the crown, who, through the chief justice, reported favorably upon it, though in general terms, and in this new form the subject was again placed by the Privy Council in the hands of the Jan. 1. Lords of Trade. It was about this time that Phipps arrived from Massachusetts. The King had immediately gone off to Holland to confer with commissioners of his allies on the management of the war with France. With the interval of only a couple of weeks, he remained

April 9.

on the continent till the autumn; and the

Oct. 19. agents could not reach him with personal solicitations. Mather, however, lost no opportunity for advancing his business. Just before the King came to England for his short visit. in the spring, Mather obtained an audience of the Queen, in which he entreated her Majesty's good offices for her subjects in Massachusetts, and she replied, "I shall be willing to do all I can for them." The King admitted him to two audiences, saying at the latter of them that he would see what might be done

April 28.