USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 1 > Part 52
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The first duty of the new government was to organize a functioning judiciary. The former system was sus- tained as nearly as might be, the President and Council replacing the Governor and Assistants in the structure. But, and here again was bitterness for the former gover- ning class, provision was made for appeals to England. This had been a specific mandate in Dudley's commis- sion. That litigants should be subject to the delay in de- cisions coming from an appeal over-seas and that evi- dence for appellate proceedings, never easy of access here, should have to be presented on occasion in London was no doubt a great hardship.
The President and Council voted that it would be "much for his Majesty's service, and needful for the sup- port of the government and prosperity of all these plan- tations, to allow a well-regulated Assembly to represent the people in making needful laws and levies." Whether this was for home consumption or whether the unsettled and brief tenure of the Government made it inexpedient to agitate the matter is a question. Certainly it does not appear in their report to the Lords of Trade.
ACTIVITIES OF THE TEMPORARY GOVERNMENT (1686)
H. M. S. Rose was dispatched to New England lest Massachusetts should offer forcible resistance to the in-
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GOVERNMENTAL CRISIS
auguration of the President and Council. Upon hearing the commission read, the General Court protested that it was illegal, but did not oppose the establishment of government. The keys of the fort were surrendered and thus ended a thirty-six-year-long attempt to escape regu- lation by the mother country. The theocrats have often been criticized for their exasperating tactics of evading, temporizing and prevaricating, which ultimately pre- vented a settlement by conciliation. According to Puri- tan psychology these methods were not reprehensible when used in the service of the Lord. Their code of moral and religious ethics based on the Old Testament, led them to express themselves in Biblical language and to admire and imitate the trickery of Jacob and others of the chosen people. If God's will could be performed by cunning its use was justifiable when attempted in a good cause. What human strategy could not accomplish they hoped divine intervention would bring to pass. Con- sequently they were always looking for a miracle to hap- pen, such as the Popish Plot, Monmouth's Rebellion and later the landing of the Prince of Orange, events which each time saved them from the "oppression" of the mother country, and which they believed to have been inspired for their special benefit.
BUSINESS MEN (1686-1688)
President Dudley immediately announced that he would disturb existing institutions just as little as possi- ble. Although he did not say so, business was to be the chief interest of his administration. At once there was a general quickening of the colony's commercial life. A general association of merchants in the large coast towns was formed for the furthering of trade in all possible ways. Each town was to have its committee of mer- chants whose duty it was to keep in touch with local con- ditions and report concerning them to the "grand and standing committee" of the whole. The President and Council sent petitions to England asking for the power to coin money and for a modification of the sugar impost, requests to which the Lords of Trade paid no immediate
From the portrait in the New England Historic Genealogical Society EDWARD RAWSON, SECRETARY OF THE COLONY
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THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH
attention. The administration also gave serious consider- ation to a banking scheme designed to supply a medium of currency then badly needed. It should be noted that it was the colony's trade which the new government stood for, not the sacrifice of New England's commercial life for that of England. In theory this party was quite in sympathy with the commercial policy of the mother country, providing the Navigation Acts were not too strictly enforced. They did not, like the old charter gov- ernment, deny the power of Parliament to regulate the trade, but they preferred to keep the enforcing of those laws in their own hands. This fact is evidenced by the constant conflict between the native officers of govern- ment and Edward Randolph, the surveyor and collector of the customs, who seemed to them an intruding out- sider.
The President and Council likewise championed the big land speculation schemes then being promoted, enter- prises in which many of the councillors were personally interested. The Atherton Company whose claims to the Narragansett country had been long under dispute now expected a favorable settlement, since the region had been added to the new Dominion. The commission ap- pointed to establish the authority of the President and Council there also tried to settle land title, but met with great opposition from squatters. The "Million Pur- chase" Company, seven of whose stockholders were coun- cillors, received from the President and Council confirma- tion of its extensive purchases in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
In spite of the great activity of its few short months (May 20 to December 20, 1686), the temporary govern- ment was able to accomplish very little before the arrival of the new governor-general. However, it had served the purpose for which it was established-bridging the gap between the old charter government and the royal rule which was to follow.
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH (1686-1689)
Important, nay vital, in the history of Massachusetts was the establishment of the Church of England. There
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was undoubtedly a great demand for an Established Church in Boston. Randolph, with his customary exag- geration, estimated that four-fifths of the populace was disaffected. The rigid laws of church-going compelled all the populace to attend worship. Even Randolph and his lady attended the South Church. They might get what comfort they could out of their mental reservations and invisible conformation to old ways. Mrs. Randolph herself worshipped quietly in that old way; and when- ever the Reverend Mr. Wilson mentioned the name of Jesus, made obeisance. But Randolph's estimate was absurd. If three-fourths of the population was against theocracy ,the English Church, gathered under authority, would not have had to struggle for its existence.
The ecclesiastical experiment, however, was not a fail- ure. When Randolph first appeared with the commission of Dudley, he brought with him Robert Ratcliffe, or- dained in the Episcopacy. With Mr. Ratcliffe he ap- peared before the council with a legitimate demand for the establishment of an Episcopal Church. First he pro- posed that the South Church should be used for that purpose. To this the President and Council dared not acceed. The theology of those days was not generous. The straight and narrow path was very straight and very narrow. Those who did not conform were considered worshippers of Baal in whatever guise they came. Dud- ley was still a Massachusetts man, the old spirit, diluted and ameliorated though it was, had not gone out of him nor out of most of his colleagues. Whether moved by reasonableness toward the new forms or by prudence based on his ambition, he was willing that the church should be established. It was one of the things he was in office to bring about.
However he and his councellors knew the temper of the people. Randolph with all his contacts seems never to have grasped it. Hence without the strong grasp of a tyrant (and that tyrant was impending) it was unthink- able that a Congregational Church could be comman- deered, even for a part of the time, by a denomination whose practices its membership abhorred. Therefore, to
KIRKE'S APPOINTMENT AS GOVERNOR 579
the discomfiture of Randolph and Ratcliffe, the east end of the town house was set apart for the new services. Randolph's proposal that funds raised for the support of the existing churches and for missionary purposes among the Indians should be shared with the new church was also negatived. In the town house, June 6, 1686, the first service was held. A movable pulpit was constructed and was carried back and forth to the small auditorium as the occasion required. While the English services at- tracted no such throngs as Randolph had predicted, it is not improbable that his private expectations were real- ized.
Of the first service Sewall writes, "It seemed that many crowded thither." June 15th the organization was completed "by the members of the Church of England, as by Law established, under the gracious influence of the most illustrious Prince, our Sovereign Lord James II, By the Grace of God, of England, Scotland, France and Ireland King defender of the faith etc. at Boston within said majesties territory and Dominion of New England in America." Massachusetts was not recognized in this declaration as a political entity, and few of the members who had chafed under the upright sternness of Puritan rule felt regret. Dr. Benjamin Bullivant and Mr. Richard Bankes were elected Wardens; and the first record book of King's Chapel, an old parchment bound volume, was opened.
KIRKE'S APPOINTMENT AS GOVERNOR (1686)
At last another die seemed about to be cast. King Charles made known his choice for provincial governor. It made New England stand aghast. The Royal appoint- ment was Colonel Percy Kirke. This gentle soul, des- tined to be damned to everlasting fame as the notorious head of Kirke's Lambs, soldiers, swashbucklers and rapa- cious rapscallions, had not at that time entered on the most notorious part of his career. Yet enough was known of him to make the colonists understand that here was a hard and violent man, an adventurer who would adopt a policy that Stratford years before called "thorough."
Kirke did not depart from England immediately, and
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while he lingered at home news of great moment reached the colonies. King Charles, the most popular and the most worthless of his line died. Another Stuart suc- ceeded him, an unconcealed Catholic. The outlook was still dubious but it seemed to the colonists that any change must be for the better. James, next to his father the most unfortunate of the Stuarts, seems to have been in some ways the best. He was gloomy but sincere. His life was impure but not flagrant. He did not hide his Roman Catholicism.
Papist though he was the New England leaders were prepared to accept him, if not with enthusiasm at least with relief. On his accession he had declared that he was no advocate of arbitrariness, that he would maintain Englishmen in their liberties and the government as he found it; and he ordered by proclamation that the offi- cials not only in his kingdom but in the colonies should continue to exercise all their functions until further notice.
To the New England mind a Roman Catholic might be no further away from the true Congregational path than the English churchmen. The Puritans did not concern themselves about the degrees of distance of those out- side the fold. Not one of them expected to wish to carry a drop of water to a Catholic King's parched lips in the next world; but if he would be fair to them they would accept him in this as a sovereign for the time being. There was a touch of enthusiasm, born of relief, in the reception of news of his accession. James was therefore proclaimed with pomp in Boston, with the blare of trumpets and the roll of drums and the presence of the Governor, Deputy and Assistants on horseback, with an escort of foot com- panies and a troop of horse.
Kirke's appointment was automatically cancelled. Ran- dolph showed his best side in the advice he gave the King: "Whoever goes over Governor with expectation to make his fortune, will dis-serve his Majesty, disap- point himself and utterly ruin the country." He added that there was more need of "a prudent man to reconcile, than of a hot heady, passionate soldier to force."
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
[See also the bibliographies following Chapters v (Charter and Colony) ; vii (Winthrop) ; viii (Sister Settlements) ; xv (Economic) ; xvi (Trade and Shipping) ; xxi (Revolution of 1689) ; and the General Bibli- ography at the end of Volume V.]
ADAMS, James Truslow .- The Founding of New England (Boston, At- lantic Monthly Press, 1921) .- Includes a well wrought account of the Dudley presidency and Andros government (Chap. xvi). Con- vinced that the Puritans have been over-praised. Good antidote for Palfrey and Fiske.
ANDREWS, Charles M., editor .- Narratives of the Insurrections (N. Y., Scribners) .- Excellent selection of original narratives of the various colonial insurrections, including Massachusetts revolt of 1689, pp. 165-297. Andros' own report is included.
COOK, Sherwin Lawrence .- "John Wise, the Preacher of American In- surgency" (Bostonian Society, Proceedings, pp. 29-40) .- A short ac- count of the career of Wise with a list of authorities.
EVERETT, William .- Lectures on six Provincial Worthies (Manuscript in Boston Athenaeum, probably 1905) .- The first lecture, "Gov. Joseph Dudley".
FISKE, John .- The Beginnings of New England (Boston, Houghton, Mifflin 1889-1898) .- A scholarly poular acount. See Chap. vi.
FOOTE, Henry Wilder .- Annals of King's Chapel (2 vols., Boston, Little, Brown 1882) .- An excellent account of the planting of Episcopacy in Boston, and the organizing of King's Chapel. Chs. ii, iii.
FOOTE, Henry Wilder .- "The Church of England in the First Boston Town House" (Bostonian Society, Publications VIII, 1913) .- A readable and particular account of the organization of the first Episcopal Church and some history of the town house.
KIMBALL, Everett .- The Public Career of Joseph Dudley (N. Y., Long- mans Green, 1911) .- The Presidency of Dudley and his career under Andros carefully and responsibly told. Chap. i, viii.
PALFREY, John Gorham .- History of New England (5 vols., Boston, Little, Brown, 1858-1890) .- A careful detailed account of the govern- ment of Andros, sympathetic to the colonists in Vol. III, Chaps. xiii, xiv.
WHITMORE, W. H., editor .- The Andros Tracts (3 vols., Boston, Prince Society, 1868) .- A full collection of pamphlets and official papers on both sides of the controversy. Includes one of the colonists, mostly made up of affidavits. See pp. 63-132.
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CHAPTER XXI
THE REVOLUTION OF 1689 (1686-1689)
BY VIOLA F. BARNES Professor of History, Mount Holyoke College.
EDMUND ANDROS (1687)
In some respects it would have been better if the ap- pointment of Dudley to the chief office described in the preceeding chapter had been a permanent one, because a native better understood New England conditions. The Lords of Trade however, thought that a military man was needed, for which reason Sir Edmund Andros was chosen. It may be well to notice what. this gentleman was like, and why he seemed the best possible selection. First of all, he was a Guernsey man, not a native of the British Isles. His great-great grandfather had migrated from England to Guernsey and had married the daughter of the seigneur of Sausmarez, thus bringing the Saus- marez fief into the family. Andros's predecessors thus belonged to the small governing aristocracy of the island. While still very young Andros entered military life, serv- ing first in Holland and later in the West Indies.
When the exceedingly aristocratic "Fundamental Con- stitutions" were first being applied to Carolina, he was nominated landgrave by his relative, the Earl of Craven, a position of honor and responsibility bearing with it the holding of four baronies. By this time he had established a reputation of being well acquainted with American affairs, a fact which made the Duke of York single him out as a man of the type he wished for governor of his province of New York. As is well known, the Duke of York was
582
From the portrait in the Rhode Island State Library SIR EDMUND ANDROS
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THE DOMINION
not at all in sympathy with the democratic institutions in the English colonies and steadily refused to grant a representative assembly to the inhabitants of New York. In this policy he was upheld by his charter, which is the only one of the proprietary type wherein no mention is made of the right of the people to assent to laws.
The Duke in selecting Andros believed he had found a man who disapproved of democracy as much as he himself did. Doubtless this background of experience as well as his military skill was responsible for Andros' selection as governor of the Dominion of New England in 1686. There was no question of his ability and good intentions, but there was nothing in his experience which would give him any understanding of or sympathy for the pious demo- cratic New England farmer or the fervent Puritan priest- hood.
INAUGURATION OF THE DOMINION (1687)
Andros took with him to Boston one hundred English soldiers, probably the first redcoats seen on the street of that city since the days of the royal commissioners. No wonder Andros seemed to the theocrats like a foreign conqueror and they, God's Chosen People, about to be led into captivity. He arrived on December 20, 1687, and was met at the end of Long Wharf by all the militia, and a large gathering of citizenry. Escorted to the Town House he caused his commission to be read, produced the great seal of his government, which together with a flag, both with new devices, he had brought with him. By the terms of his commission he was proclaimed Governor of all the New England colonies except Rhode Island and Connecticut. Rhode Island was almost immediately an- nexed (by additional instructions to Andros) and in the Spring Connecticut and the so-called County of Cornwall. Covering his head to show the superiority of his office, he administered the oath to eight councillors and ordered all civil or military functionaries to continue provisionally in office.
A meeting of the council was fixed for the ninth day after, so that councillors might be summoned from Plym-
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REVOLUTION OF 1689
outh and Rhode Island. Five councillors appeared from each of those colonies. Andros and twenty-eight coun- cillors chosen by the King from the various colonies in the Dominion had the complete power. All of the Massa- chusetts councillors named in Andros' commission were of the moderate party and all except Richard Wharton and Wait Winthrop had been freemen under the old charter. Joseph Dudley, William Stoughton and John Pynchon had formerly served as magistrates and all were on Dud- ley's council. These men were among the most influential, socially and financially in the whole colony. They were either merchants or large land owners and some were both. Andros was just the angular-minded, honest, un- imaginative soldier who should never have been selected for the work he was set to do. He had excellent military qualities. This he was to prove in his brief campaigns. As a routine administrator, vexed questions being out of the way, he would in all probability have proved at least tolerable. When he returned under duress to England there was no personal stain upon him.
Nevertheless he was temperamentally unfitted for the task in hand. It needed a man, wise, kindly, bent on giving the colony a government which would lead the opposed factions nearer together rather than to drive them together in opposition, one who might have convinced reasonable men that no sect had behind it a purpose, sup- ported by the government, of maintaining itself by abuses. Andros was not such a man. He was sorely tried by the difficulties of his position and by the distrust of the leaders of the old regime. He met that feeling with honest and, for him, disastrous vigor.
ADJUSTMENT OF MAINE (1687)
The Andros regime separates itself into four episodes : one military, two civil, one religious. These are the cam- paign in Maine, the land disputes, the tax levying episode, and the advancement of the English Church.
The first may be treated briefly, for although it was a rather creditable adventure, it does not play any great part in the final catastrophe of the Andros government.
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THE GOVERNMENTAL CRISIS
Andros left Boston in April, 1687, for Maine to frighten off the French who were encroaching south of the St. Croix river. From Casco Bay he went up the Kennebec and then proceeded to Pemaquid, where the Rose frigate awaited him. He purposed a conference with Castine on the Penobscot. This Castine was a Frenchman who maintained a little dominion of his own near the mouth of the Penobscot, in disregard of the claims of King James.
Castine was not at his house when Andros arrived. He lived among the Indians and had in a measure adopted their way of life. The Andros party found an altar in the common room, and though they refrained from molesting it they confiscated Castine's arms and ammunition and some other effects. The Governor inspected the English fort on the Penobscot and reconsidered his purpose to repair it, so entirely had it fallen into decay. He sent Indian messengers to Castine informing him that what his party had seized would be restored if he would come to Pemmaquid and profess allegiance to the King. He paci- fied the Indians with gifts and promises of protection from the French. The Governor had shown himself prompt and concillatory.
THE GOVERNMENTAL CRISIS (1688)
On his return, his promotion to the governorship of a wider territory having reached him, he went off on ad- ministrative business to New York and the Jerseys, re- turning by way of Albany where he tarried six months to establish friendly relations with the Five Nations. Indian restlessness now culminated in the killing of eleven Eng- lishmen near Springfield and Northfield in the Connecticut Valley. On his way to Boston he held a conference at Hartford with the influential colonists and native chiefs. He visited Northfield as well.
On returning to Boston he found that the provisional government had sent an expedition to Maine to protect the settlers at Casco Bay, owing to disturbances in that region. This he recalled, discharged some Indians who had been taken prisoners and called upon the natives to surrender their captives and submit the participants in
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the killing to the authorities. Failing in this he organized an expedition, marched into Maine and destroyed settle- ments and seized supplies and ammunition. His activities were prompt and as far as they went efficient. But they served as an excuse for the ridiculous charge that he was preparing to turn the colonies over to France; and most unreliable evidence of a renegade Indian was brought to maintain the existence of a plot to bring about a Mohawk attack on Boston. This charge fell of its own weight after being promptly faced by the Governor. If his success as a soldier was moderate, the time in which he might prove himself was brief and he seems to have been brave and on the whole competent.
THE LAND QUESTION (1687-1689)
Andros was instructed to introduce into New England English land law, which the Puritans there had practically cast aside in spite of the English theory that the King was the ultimate owner of all land over which he had jurisdiction. The trend of legal development in Massa- chusetts away from English law was nowhere more pro- nounced than in the land law. Few of the titles in New England were legally correct. In the first place, the Gov- ernor and Company granted large tracts to groups of people for settling towns; and these groups instead of dividing the lands as mere trustees, had assumed the pre- rogatives of a corporation, holding and granting lands to the settlers. Most of the soil in Massachusetts was held in this way or by Indian title, which was equally imperfect.
Moreover the companies could only act under seals; seldom had the seal of the Massachusetts Company been used. Few owners had a title recognizable at law to the land which they had held by town grant, but which they had made theirs by the sweat of their faces. Carelessness in registration and appropriation of land by squatters added greatly to the confusion, so that oftentimes the same piece had several claimants, thereby causing litiga- tion and riots. According to a Massachusetts law a squatter who had held possession for five years had the right to the property even before those who could show
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QUIT RENTS
a previous legal title of grant or purchase. Furthermore the general absence of any recognition of the King's ulti- mate ownership of the soil encouraged the development of an independent spirit incompatible, so thought the Lords of Trade, with colonial status.
By the annulling of the Masachusetts charter all un- granted territory became legally the property of the King, including the undivided lands hitherto in the possession of towns. The Lords of Trade left it to Andros' discretion, in settling defective titles, to determine whether anything more than a mere nominal acknowledgment to the King should be demanded.
When the land policy was made known a panic seized the New Englanders through fear of being dispossessed of their property. Andros tried to explain that their titles were defective and that their safeguard for the future was to have them validated. In most cases he succeeded only in adding to the terror. One man said that when he showed Andros an Indian deed for land Andros told him the Indian signature was "no more worth than a scratch with a Bears paw."
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