USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 49
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At a special meeting of the Court in September following, the King's letter, which had been received through Mr. Samuel Maverick, was consid- cred, and a reply, addressed to Secretary Morrice, adopted. In this they say : -
1 Summary from Chalmers, Annals, pp. 391,
2 Mass. Col. Rec., IV. (ii). 210, 211.
392 ; and from Hutchinson, Mass. Bay, i. 251, 253.
3 Hutchinson, Mass. Bay, i. 547, 548.
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THE CHARTER OF KING CHARLES THE FIRST.
" We may not omit to acquaint your Honor that a writing was delivered to the gov- ernor and magistrates by Mr. Samuel Maverick, the 6th of September, without direc- tion or seal, which he saith is a copy of a signification from his Majesty of his pleasure concerning this Colony of the Massachusetts, the certainty whereof seems not to be so clear unto us as former expresses from his Majesty have usually been. We have in all humility given our reasons why we could not submit to the Commissioners and their mandates the last year, which we understand lie before his Majesty, to the substance whereof we have not to add, and therefore cannot expect that the ablest persons among us could be in a capacity to declare our cause more fully. We must, there- fore, commit this our great concernment unto Almighty God, praying and hoping that his Majesty (a prince of so great clemency) will consider the state and condition of his poor and afflicted subjects at such a time, being in imminent danger by the public enemies of our nation, and that in a wilderness far remote from relief." 1
These proceedings were not concluded with entire unanimity. Petitions to the General Court came in from four of the principal commercial towns, entreating compliance with the royal demand, - that from Boston having twenty-six signatures; that from Salem thirty-three; from Newbury, thirty- nine; and from Ipswich, seventy-three names. The Boston petition (in substance they were all the same), with the names attached to it, and the names which were attached to the other petitions, respectively, may be seen in 2 Mass. Historical Collections, viii. 103-107.2 The signers gave offence to the Court, and several from each town were summoned to appear to answer for the same. Maverick came on from New York, with a letter signed by Nichols, Carr, and himself, making a general protest against this last action of the Court, testifying to the genuineness of the letter subscribed by Sir William Morrice, and fully concurring in the substance of the several peti- tions referred to. The Court answered that what they had to say upon the subject had been communicated to Sir William Morrice.3
The attempts to appease the King by humble addresses and professions of loyalty were now supplemented by a substantial gift to his Majesty of a shipload of masts, the freight of which cost the Colony sixteen hundred pounds sterling. The gift was well received, and was acknowledged under the sign-manual of the King, bearing date April 21, 1669.
Thus ended for a time the contest with the Crown. England was not without her calamities at home-the London Fire and the London Plague- which were well calculated to arrest her thoughts for a season ; Lord Clar- endon had been dismissed and was in exile. For nearly ten years there was an almost entire suspension of political relations between New England and the mother country. But the projects of the home Government relating to the colony were never wholly abandoned. The Council for Foreign Planta- tions was twice reconstructed. At its first meeting under its last organiza- tion, in May, 1671, a plan for a circular-letter to the Colony was debated,
Muss. Col. Rec., IV , ii. 317. this controversy. Cf. Ilutchinson, Original Papers, P. 511.
2 An interesting collection of "Danforth
Papers" in this volume throws much light on
3 Palfrey, New England, ii. 628.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
which they finally agreed should be of a conciliatory nature. They then considered the scheme of sending a deputy to New England, "with secret instructions to inform of the condition of those colonies, and whether they were of such power as to be able to resist his Majesty, and declare for themselves as independent of the Crown."1 But this scheme was allowed to fall into neglect. Soon afterwards, in March, 1675, the functions of the Council of Trade and the Council for Foreign Plantations were restored to the Privy Council, and were exercised as formerly by a standing committee of that body, called "The Lords of the Committee of Trade and Plantations."
Ferdinando Gorges and Robert Mason had been active since the Restora- tion, and had not allowed their claims to sleep; though, after the peaceful settlement of the towns in Maine and New Hampshire under the government of the Massachusetts, their complaints at Court had received little attention.2 In 1674 they proposed to surrender to the King their respective patents, on condition of having secured to them onc-third part of the customs, rents, &c. But nothing was effected. Allegations were also renewed against Massachusetts by the merchants of London, for a violation of the Naviga- tion Laws. This was a standing complaint, persistently made, and the occa- sion of it as persistently renewed by the Colony. In March, 1675, the Lords of the Committee of Trade and Plantations proposed to the King to send five commissioners to the colony, "to arrange its affairs," and to look after the violation of the Navigation Acts. At the same time the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General were directed to examine the claims of Mason and Gorges as presented in their renewed petition of the previous January. To inquirics submitted to the Commissioners of Customs in England, they replied that New England was equally subject with the rest of the colonies to the laws of trade. The law-officers reported that Mason had "a good legal title to the lands" in the Province of New Hampshire, and that Gorges had " a good title to the Province of Maine." 3
An earnest decision was now reached. The Privy Council, at a meeting in December, 1675, decided to recommend that copics of the claimants' petitions be sent to Massachusetts, and that the Government there should be required, within a specified time, subsequently fixed at six months, to send over agents sufficiently empowered to answer for the Colony, and to receive the King's determination upon the matters in issue, and this plan was adopted. Edward Randolph, " the evil genius of New England," now first Jak andolph- appears upon the stage. He was a supple tool of arbitrary power. He was sent to Massachusetts with the King's letter, dated March 10, 1675-76, and I Palfrey, New England, iii. 274. brought the settlements of New Hampshire and Maine within its own jurisdiction.
2 The Massachusetts Colony had, by an early interpretation of its northern boundary,
3 Palfrey, as above, pp. 280, 281.
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with copies of the peti- tions and complaints of Charly R Mason and Gorges. He sailed about April 1, and landed in Boston June 10, 1676, after a tedious pas- sage of ten weeks. He found the colony involved in a war with the Indians, contending with them for the possession of the soil. The public distress was great, the loss of life was fearful, and the charge upon the Colony most embarrassing. The inquiry now set on foot, through the instrumentality of Randolph, and the proceedings under it, which struck at the powers of the Government of the colony, were continued from time to time, until finally, by a judicial process, judgment was pronounced against the charter. A full history of these proceedings in detail through all these years would fill many pages, and the same may be said of that part of the narrative already told; but it comes only within my province to present the prominent features and the results of this controversy, so momentous to the colony.1
Randolph presented his papers to the Governor (Leverett), who admitted him into the presence of the Council. The letter of the King, in which he acquainted the magistrates with the representations of Gorges and Mason, the Governor read aloud. Randolph said that he had the King's orders to require an answer, and to wait for it one month. In the mean time he tried to stimulate a local faction in the colony. He complained to the Governor of infractions, which he had himself observed, of the Acts of Navigation. He visited several towns in New Hampshire, and found " the whole country complaining of the oppression and usurpation of the magistrates of Boston." At Portsmouth, several of the principal inhabitants of the Province of Maine came to him, making the same complaints. Returning to Boston, he em- barked for home July 30, 1676. A full account of his observations of the country, made during this visit, is published in Hutchinson's Collection of Papers, with which compare, for dates, his Narrative in Massachusetts Archives, vol. cxxvii.
Soon after Randolph sailed, the Governor summoned a special Court to meet on the 9th of August. The elders were consulted, and gave their opinion that " the most expedient way " to answer " the complaints of Mr. Gorges and Mr. Mason, about the extent of our patent line," is by the ap- pointment of agents " to appear and make answer " for us; and at the next session, in September, the Court adopted this advice, and William Stoughton and Peter Bulkley were chosen for the purpose. They sailed October 30, bearing an address to the King. The agents also were intrusted with a paper,
1 The principal original sources to be con- sulted for the history of this contest are Chal- mers's Annals, Hutchinson's History of Muss. Bay and his Collection of Original Papers, the Mass. Col. Records, the Mass. Archives, Mass.
Ilist. Col., and Palfrey's History of New England. Dr. Palfrey used many original unpublished papers from public and private depositories in England not elsewhere printed. There are other sources cited in this paper.
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TIIE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
entitled " A Brief Declaration of the Right and Claim of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, to the Lands now in their Possession, but pretended to by Mr. Gorges and Mr. Mason."
Randolph was already in England, and lost no time to report what he had done and seen; and the agents, on their arrival three months later, found the minds of the courtiers prejudiced against the cause they repre- sented. Randolph had urged that the Colony had broken the laws of trade and navigation. After some months had passed, the Lords of the Com- mittee, in June, 1677, advised the King that, in their opinion, this allegation had been proved, and recommended that the Government of the colony should be notified of his Majesty's pleasure that said acts be duly executed ; and that the Lord Treasurer should appoint officers of customs for Boston, and elsewhere in New England, for the better observation thereof. The Chief Justices, Rainsford and North, to whom the claims of Mason and Gorges had been referred, gave their opinion that the patent of 4 Car. I. (that is, to the Massachusetts patentees) was good, and made the adven- turers a corporation upon the place, but that neither Maine nor New Hamp- shire was included within its chartered limits ; that the government of Maine belonged to the heir of Sir Ferdinando Gorges; and that the government of New Hampshire had never been granted to John Mason, and was not legally invested in his heir. As to the right of soil in these territories, the Judges declared themselves not prepared to decide. This judgment was adopted by the Lords of the Committee and approved by the Privy Coun- cil. At a subsequent hearing of the parties, the whole matter was referred back to the committee, who, having debated the business again, and agreed to several heads, summoned the agents, and informed them that the Colony must adhere to the rule concerning the northern boundary of their patent as announced by the Judges; that they must solicit his Majesty's pardon for presuming to coin money ; that the Act of Navigation must in future be observed; that their faulty laws must be changed, &c. On being now dis- missed for a week, the agents were informed " that his Majesty would not destroy their charter, but rather, by a supplementary one to be given to them, set things right that were now amiss." At a number of subsequent meetings, at which the agents were present, the same general ground was gone over. The agents renewed their request that the New Hampshire towns might be allowed to retain their present organization, that being the wish of the inhabitants as well as of the Government. Mason now in- formed their Lordships that he had been approached with an application, which hitherto he had resisted, to sell his patent to the Massachusetts, tell- ing them at the same time that a similar application to Gorges had been successful. This was unwelcome intelligence to the King, who had in- tended to buy the Province of Maine for his illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth, but he had been anticipated by the vigilant Colony. John Usher, the Boston merchant, was in London at this time, and he was the medium through whom the business was conducted for the Colony. Gorges
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THE CHARTER OF KING CHARLES THE FIRST.
was paid the sum of twelve hundred and fifty pounds for his patent, and the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay became " lord paramount of Maine." } The transaction took place in March, 1677-78.2
This measure was not at all calculated to mollify the feelings of the Lords of the Committee respecting the colony. Randolph fanned the flame. In the autumn of 1677 the General Court had ordered that the oath of fidelity to the country be revived and put in practice throughout the colony. Randolph had received notice of this, and urged that an order might be taken for the protection of persons loyal to the Crown.
Several addresses were made to the King from the General Court while the agents were in England, and several laws were made to remove some of the exceptions which were taken in England, particularly an act to punish treason with death. Oaths of allegiance to the King were required. The King's arms were ordered to be carved and put in the court-house. With regard to the Acts of Trade, they confessed in a letter to their agents that they had not conformed to them. They said they " apprehended them to be an invasion of the rights, liberties, and properties of the subjects of his Majesty in the colony, they not being represented in Parliament; and, according to the usual sayings of the learned in the law, the laws of Eng- land were bounded within the four seas, and did not reach America. How- ever, as his Majesty had signified his pleasure that those acts should be observed in the Massachusetts, they had made provision, by a law of the Colony, that they should be strictly attended from time to time, although it greatly discouraged trade and was a great damage to his Majesty's planta- tion."3 " Thus we hear for the first time," says Chalmers, " that the colo- nists, though in the same breath swearing allegiance to the Crown of England, were not bound by the Acts of Parliament, because they were not represented in it."
The agents continued to struggle against adverse influences ; charges of perverseness and disloyalty were unceasingly made against the Colony, and doubts as to the original validity of the charter they held so sacred were industriously propagated. Resort was again had to the officers of the law, to whom a series of questions were propounded by the Lords of the Com- mittee respecting this instrument. The Crown lawyers, Messrs. Jones and Winnington, in May, 1678, gave their opinion, under three heads, as fol- lows: I. That, as to the patent of 4 Caroli, whether it were good in point of creation, it was most proper that the opinion of the Lords Chief Justices should be had thereupon. 2. That neither the quo warranto, mentioned to be brought against them (in 1635), nor the judgment thereupon, was such as to cause a dissolution of the charter. 3. That the misdemeanors objected against them do contain sufficient matter to avoid their patent.4
The Lords of the Committee thereupon ordered a report to be prepared,
1 Palfrey, New England, 293-312. is dated two days later. Both are recorded at the
2 The original deed of conveyance to Usher is in the Library of the Mass. Hist. Soc. It bears date March 13, 1677. Usher's deed to the Colony
State House. See Proceed. for Jan. 1870, p. 201.
3 Hutchinson, Mass. Bay, i. 322.
4 Chalmers, Annals, pp. 439, 440.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
in which all matters that had passed since the first settlement of New Eng- land should be recited ; " the several encroachments and injuries which the Colony of Massachusetts had practised upon their neighbors; and their contempt and neglect of his Majesty's commands; and will offer their opinion that a quo warranto be brought against their charter, and new laws framed instead of such as were repugnant to the laws of England." And " their Lordships agreed to recommend Mr. Randolph unto the Lord Treasurer for a favorable issue of his pretensions to be employed as Collec- tor of his Majesty's Customs in New England, in consideration of his zeal and capacity to serve his Majesty therein; "I and Randolph was commissioned.
The agents made a written reply to Randolph's Narrative, in which they corrected many of his statistical errors. Their stay in England had now become very wearisome, yet they did not feel at liberty to depart without the King's leave. They were detained until the fall of 1679.2 They arrived at Boston December 23, and brought with them a letter from the King, dated July 24 preceding. In this he expressed disappointment that Stough- ton and Bulkley had not been furnished with fuller powers, and he made the following requisitions: (1) That agents should be sent over in six months, fully instructed to answer and transact what was undetermined at that time ; (2) that freedom and liberty of conscience be given to such as desire to worship God according to the way of the Church of England; (3) that all men of competent estates, ratable at los., be eligible to be made freemen and magistrates; (4) that the number of assistants hereafter be eighteen, according to the charter; (5) that the oath of allegiance be ad- ministered to all persons in trust or office; (6) that all military commis- sions and proceedings of justice run in his Majesty's name ; (7) that all laws repugnant to trade be abolished; (8) that an assignment of the Province of Maine be made to the King on the repayment of the sum for which they purchased it; (9) that Massachusetts recall all commissions granted for governing the Province of New Hampshire.3
During the sharp controversies between Massachusetts and the mother country which followed the Restoration, two parties naturally sprung up in the colony, both of whom agreed as to the importance of their charter privileges, but differed in opinion as to the extent of them, and as to the proper measures to preserve them. At the period which we now are considering, Mr. Bradstreet, who had succeeded Leverett as Governor in
1 Phillipps MSS., quoted by Palfrey, New England, iii. 317.
2 On the 30th of May, 1679, the General Court adopted the following order : " The se- curing of our original patent being matter of great importance, and the former provision in that respect, made in the year 1664, being at an end by the decease of most of the persons be- trusted in that order, this court doth therefore order that the patent be forthwith sent for, and
committed to our present honored Deputy- Governor [Thomas Danforth], Captain John Richards, and Captain Daniel Fisher, with Ma- jor Thomas Clarke, one of the last commit- tee, who are to take care of the same ; to whose wisdom we refer it, to dispose of it as may best tend to prevent any inconvenience relating thereto." Mass. Col. Rec., v. 237.
3 Hutchinson, Muss. Bay, i. 327 ; Papers, pp. 519-522.
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1679, represented the more moderate party, joined to whom were Mr. Stoughton and Mr. Dudley. At the head of the other party was the Deputy-Governor, Mr. Danforth, with whom were associated Danicl Gookin, Elisha Hutchinson, and Elisha Cooke. This latter party opposed the sending over agents, or submitting to Acts of Trade, &c., advocating an adherence to their charter, agreeably to their own construction of it, and leaving the event.
S. Bradstreet Sho: Danforth ID why Daniel Gookin Sin william Stoughton. Geisha Hutchinson
Randolph, who took passage for New York Elisha forte about the time that the agents embarked, had arrived a fortnight earlier; but, being intrusted with business relating to New Hampshire, he did not appear in Boston till more than a month after them. On the 4th of February, 1679-80, the Court convened, and the letter of the King - already referred to -which had been brought by the agents was read. In it the King gave notice of the appointment of Randolph to be " Collector, Surveyor, and Searcher" for all the colonies of New England.
The Deputies were inclined to be unyielding, but the Court proceeded to act upon the King's instructions. They made provision for the election of eighteen assistants, according to the charter;1 and the Governor was instructed to take "the oath required by his Majesty for the observation and execution of the statutes for the encouraging and increasing of Navigation and Trade." _ The long and faithful service of their agents, Stoughton and Bulkley, was acknowledged, and a gratuity voted to them. The claim to New Hampshire was relinquished, and all commissions granted to persons residing in that territory were vacated. But, on the other hand, as Lord Proprictor of Maine by virtue of its purchase of Gorges, the Colony stepped into his place.
Before the next meeting of the General Court in May, Bradstreet wrote
1 The reason why, originally, the number of ing men. On the other hand, the greater the assistants had been limited to eight or ten was number of assistants the less the weight of the House of Deputies, the election of all officers depending upon the major vote of the whole Court. This last reason might cause the Deputies to refuse their consent to an increase." Hutch- inson, Mass. Bay, i. 326, note. "to leave room for persons of quality expected from England. Those expectations had long ceased. In a popular government, and where the magistrates were annually chosen, increasing the number would give a better chance to aspir- VOL. I .- 47.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
a private letter in reply to that of the King, fearing, perhaps, that the action of the Court might be more resolute. Of Randolph, the Governor said that the people "generally looked upon him as one that bore no good-will to the country, but sought its ruin." The Court, soon after it met, dispatched a letter to the Secretary of State, excusing themselves for only partially replying to the King's letter, pleading as a reason the small attendance of members of the General Assembly then convened (owing to " the extremity of the season "), and the sudden departure of the ship by which the letter was conveyed. As to the Province of Maine, they affirmed that instead of laying "a severe hand" upon it, they had saved it from " utter ruin."
At a later period of the session, which continued into the month of June, the Court addressed a letter of greater length to the Secretary of State, going over again the subject of the requisitions made in the King's letter, then under consideration. They informed Lord Sunderland, " in order to his Majesty's more full satisfaction," that, in addition to the proceedings already reported of the last Court, a committee had now been raised for the review of the laws, "to the intent that, where any should be found repugnant to the laws of England, or derogatory to his Majesty's honor and dignity, they might be repealed or amended." They acknowledged that the chief design of their predecessors in coming over and planting this wilderness was that they might enjoy freedom in matters of religious worship, but they did not suppose his Majesty intended that the notorious errors and blasphemies of the Quakers should, with impunity, be openly propagated. As for other Protestant dissenters who carried themselves peaceably, they trusted there might be no cause of complaint on their behalf. They had extended the privilege of the franchise to others besides members of their own churches, though they humbly conceived their charter did expressly give them an absolute and free choice of their own members. They humbly begged to be excused for not having, as yet, sent over other agents to attend to their concerns, understanding that his Majesty and Privy Council were taken up in matters of far greater moment. They also pleaded their low condition, through the vast charges of the late war, and inability to meet the disbursements attending such a mission ; nor did they omit to mention the hazard of the sea, and the danger from Turkish pirates, " many of our inhabitants continuing at this day in miser- able captivity among them." )
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