USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 1 > Part 17
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2Quoted in Arnold i, 506, from Foster MSS.
3N. Y. Col. Doc., iii, 537.
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toward forming some temporary government of her own. In an open letter, signed by W. C. and J. C., and addressed to "Neighbors and friends", the authors state that since "we are sufficiently informed that our late government, under which we were subservient, is now silenced and celipsed, we, under a sense of our deplorable and un- settled condition, do offer to you whether it may not be expedient for thie several towns of this late Colony, the several principal persons thercin, to make their personal appearance at Newport, before the day of usual Election by Charter, which will be the 1st day of May next, there to consult and agree of some suitable way in this present junc- ture".1
Accordingly, on May 1, at a meeting of a body styling themselves a Court of Election, it was determined that their former charter government should be resumed and that all officers, both civil and military, who were in place in 1686 should be re-established in office. A declaration was furthermore adopted justifying their action. We declare, reads the document, "that the late government of the dominion of New England, whereof Sir Edmund Andros was Governor in Chief, as we are certainly informed, is now silenced by reason his person as well as some of his council are seized and confined within the limits of Boston, in New England, for what cause best known to themselves. By which overture, we, the freemen aforesaid, were void of government, the consequence whereof appearing dangerous, we have thought it most safe for the keeping of the peace of our Colony to lay hold of our Charter privileges, establishing our officers according to their former station, hoping and not questioning but through grace and favor, our said Charter according to the extent of it may be confirmed unto us".2 This declaration they addressed to "the present supreme power of England", admitting that they were "not only ignorant of what titles should be given in this overture, but also not so rhetorical as becomes such personages".
Having thus established a temporary government, they now awaited the turn of events. Andros was a prisoner at Boston,3 and all New England was gradually recovering its freedom. After a futile attempt to hold an assembly in October, 1689, the Rhode Island authorities
1R. I. C. R., iii, 257, under date of April 23, 1689. The signers are undoubt- edly Walter Clarke and John Coggeshall. An original in Clarke's handwrit- ing is in R. I. H. S. MSS., v, 29, in R. I. H. S. Library.
2R. I. C. R. iii, 266-9, where the proceedings are misdated 1690.
3For Andros's escape to Newport and capture, August 3, 1689, see Andros Tracts, i, 174, iii, 95-102; Hutchinson, i, 392; R. I. C. R., iii, 258; Randolph Papers in Prince Soc. Publ., xxviii, 295; and Doc. Col. Hist. N. Y., iii, 614-617.
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convened a meeting of the freemen in February, 1690. They had previously petitioned the throne for a confirmation of the charter, which was "not condemned nor taken from us", and now sought to place the government on a firm and permanent footing. Since Walter Clarke seemed disinclined to hazard himself in the position of gov- ernor, Henry Bull, the old Newport Quaker, was finally chosen in his stead. A full complement of officers was elected, the charter was demanded of the former governor, a colony seal-an anchor with the motto "Hope"-was adopted, and various other items of business were transacted. But these proceedings were not relished by all the inhabitants. There was a certain small party, composed chiefly of Narragansett land owners, who considered themselves somewhat above the rest of their brethren in the colony, had tasted a quiet period of repose under Andros, and disliked any prospect of being under Rhode Island jurisdiction. The leader of this party was the staunch royalist, Francis Brinley. In a letter to his son, dated in February, 1690, he scornfully alludes to Rhode Island's attempts at legislation and says, "It is high time his Majesty would settle a government over New England. We can never govern ourselves with justice or im- partiality, unless there be a good government established here, as in other Plantations. I must remove".1 But if he or his party hoped that Rhode Island's charter would be invalidated by the Andros proceedings, they must have been soon disappointed. On December 7, 1693, after some correspondence on the subject, the attorney-general rendered as his final opinion, "I see nothing in point of law but that their Majesties may gratify the petitioners, and confirm their char- ter".2 Although the Rhode Island government was now assured, Brinley did not remove. His landed interests were too large to permit his leaving the colony, so he remained and henceforth endeavored to do as much harm as he could to what he called the "Quaker mob government".
The administration of the New England colonies had at length been decided upon by the crown authorities. The Connecticut and Rhode Island charters were allowed to stand, and Plymouth was united with Massachusetts under a new charter in 1691. The political rights of the colonists of this newly formed province were considerably cur- tailed, in that the governor was to be appointed by the king, the crown was to have the right of veto, and colonial departments, like the
1R. I. C. R., iii, 259.
2Idem, p. 294. A similar opinion had been rendered in the case of Connec- ticut in 1690. (See Trumbull, i, 387.)
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customs and the admiralty, were made directly dependent on cor- responding departments in England. This was all in conformity with the king's colonial policy of arraying as united a front as possible against the French in Canada. To that end also, the first governor appointed for the new provinee was Sir William Phipps, a native of Massachusetts, who favored the crown interests and who had already won a military and naval reputation. He was the precursor of a line of royal governors who, in their endeavor to obtain a concurrent and united action against a common enemy, often en- eroached upon the chartered rights of the smaller colonies of Con- necticut and Rhode Island.
The first controversy between the erown authority and Rhode Island was over the question of militia control. The commission granted to Phipps entrusted him with the command of the militia in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, and this, of course, elashed with the Rhode Island charter, which gave the colony sole control over her own troops. When Phipps sought to assume his power in this direction over Rhode Island, that colony, after a vain attempt at arbitration, made a formal remonstranee to the king. They elaimed that, besides the question of infringement of chartered rights, the abstraetion of her military prerogative was very prejudicial to a colony which had such a large water frontier, and that already the adviee of certain Narragansett landholders in Phipps's couneil had been most subvertive of the colony interests. On December 7, 1693, the attorney-general rendered as his opinion that the "power given by the Charter to the government of the colony to train and exercise the inhabitants of that colony in martial affairs is still in force". In August, 1694, the crown, acting upon the advice of the Privy Council, issued a manifesto limiting Phipps's authority to command in times of war such quotas of troops as were required from the eolony by royal order.1
Another ground of complaint made by Rhode Island at this time to the king was in reference to the eastern boundary line. Since Plymouth was added to Massachusetts under the new eharter, any disputes with the former colony would now have to be waged with a much more powerful opponent. When Rhode Island attempted to run the eastern line aeeording to the terms of her charter, Phipps prohibited any such proceedings on account of the obseure wording of the elause and because the controversy was as yet unsettled. Rhode
1The documents for the militia question are in R. I. C. R., iii, 285-300.
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Island, therefore, in preparing her petition upon the militia question, in 1692, asked that the castern boundary might be explained as run- ning from the old Massachusetts line south to the occan, at a distance "three miles eastward of the most eastermost branch of the Narra- gansett Bay". The Massachusetts agents quickly petitioned for a hearing upon the question before it was decided. Unable to arrive at any determination at so great a distance from the locality in dispute, the English authorities, in 1694, recommended a reference of the matter to disinterested parties living near there.1 This was accord- ingly done, but no settlement of the controversy was made until half a century later. Occasional attempts of Massachusetts officers to distrain for taxes led to Rhode Island reprisals, and brought about an unsettled condition in the vicinity of the eastern line similar to that which had existed for so many years on the Connecticut border.
In February, 1695, Phipps died, and the government of Massachu- setts passed temporarily into the hands of Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton. It was two years before Phipps's successor was chosen, the home government in the meanwhile waiting for some cessation froni the Indian wars in the north before making a new appointment. In the interregnum the most important event happening in Rhode Island was the introduction of the bicameral system into the legisla- ture. This move had been proposed many years before by the town of Warwick, and had all but succeeded in being passed in 1666. The deputies, jealous of the power of the assistants, rather considered themselves as a distinct branch of the assembly, even declaring, in 1672, that as the House of Commons is the people's representative in England, so the deputies are the representatives of the freemen here. It was only a question of time when they would be satisfied with nothing but complete separation. On May 6, 1696, they formally desired that the deputies "shall sit as a House of Deputies, for the future, and have liberty to choose their Speaker among themselves, and likewise their Clerk". This was so voted, and henceforth the Governor and his council sat as the upper house of the assembly.2
The Narragansett Country during all this time had remained in a strangely tranquil condition. Under Andros's administration, although
1Arnold, i, 529; R. I. C. R., iii, 294.
2R. I. C. R., iii, 313. See also Moran's Bicamera System in America in J. H. U. Studies, 13th ser. no. 5, p. 22. Warwick, on Oct. 26, 1664, had petitioned that the Deputies should "meet and sit together and choose their Speaker as a distinct house it being the commendable form used in our native country as well as in the colonies about us". (Copies of Warwick Rec., p. 7, in R. I. H. S. Lib'y.)
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closely associated with Rhode Island, it had been treated technically as a separate province. Since there was much dispute as to the proprietorship of the territory, Andros, on August 31, 1687, rendered a careful report on all the claims. He rehearsed the different points in the history of the controversy, dismissing the Atherton mortgage claim on the ground that it had been extorted by force for a fictitious debt, asserting that the grant of the territory to Connecticut was cancelled by the subsequent grant to Rhode Island, and making especial allusion to the award of the commissioners in favor of the latter colony.1 Thus again did the judgment of an impartial arbiter favor Rhode Island, as against Connecticut, in regard to jurisdiction, and against the Atherton purchasers in regard to right of the soil.
Another matter that came up for Andros's consideration, in connection with the Narragansett lands, was in regard to the Huguenot settlements in East Greenwich. The persecutions following the repeal of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 caused great numbers of the most enterprising and skillful Protestants in France to flee to America. They formed settlements at Oxford, Massachusetts, New Rochelle, New York, and elsewhere. In the autumn of 1686 about forty-five of these French families had come to Rhode Island, and on November 4 had purchased of the Atherton proprietors a large tract of land in the northern part of Kingstown. Here two dozen dwellings were soon erected, lands were cultivated, and a church established. Hardly was the settlement begun when the refugees unwittingly became involved in the bitter dispute over the Narragansett lands that had been so long in progress. In July, 1687, some residents of East Greenwich and of Kingstown forcibly carried off forty loads of hay from the Frenchmen's meadows. The Huguenot minister immediately hurried to Boston to make complaint before Governor Andros. When summoned to explain their proceedings, the Greenwich men asserted that the lands in question had been laid out to them nine years before by the Rhode Island government. Andros, unable to make any final decision upon the case, ordered that the cut hay should be equally divided between the English and the French. Although no further encroachment was made upon the settlement during Andros's rule, the precedent thus set was followed a few years later, this time with more harmful results. In the summer of 1691 some inhabitants of East Greenwich, evidently of the more rude and lawless portion of the population, subjected the Huguenots to many annoyances and
1Cal. State Papers, Colonial, 1685-88, No. 1414v. See also Arnold, i, 505.
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indignities. Monsieur Ayrault, the old French doctor, thus quaintly refers to their afflictions: "We were molested by the vulgar sort of the people, who, flinging down our fences, laid open our lands to ruin, so that all benefit thereby we were deprived of. Ruin looked on us in a dismal state, our wives and children living in fear of the threats of many unruly persons". He describes how finally the ill treatment became so pronounced that his companions were compelled to flee from the colony, thus being "forced away from their lands and houses, orchards and vineyards".
Rhode Island has been accused, and perhaps justly, of not doing enough to repress such disorderly proceedings. There was some justice in the claim of the East Greenwich men that the Atherton proprietors had unscrupulously sold to the refugees a tract of land to which Rhode Island had the prior claim; but the claimants. should have sought retribution by legal means and not taken the law into their own hands. We can excuse to a certain extent the Westerly participants in the broils and frays upon the southwest border, but the injuries inflicted upon these inoffensive Huguenots can only be condenmed as hasty and willful. The Rhode Island legislators, although evidently disapproving of these actions, were either too indifferent or else too familiar with such disorders to repress the persecutors with the arm of the law.1
After the overthrow of the Andros rule the Narragansett Country lapsed quietly under Rhode Island control, the controversy gradually narrowing down to a dispute over the territory on the extreme south- western border. Connecticut seemed unwilling to press her claim until she received some assurance from English authorities, and in October, 1694, even desired that Rhode Island would make no incur- sions on the west side of the Pawcatuck. This, if not a tacit admission of the smaller colony's claim to the east side, showed that Con- necticut's former bold pretensions were weakened, temporarily at least, by her adversary's persistence and firmness. Rhode Island throughout steadfastly maintained her jurisdiction over the entire territory, appointing minor civil officers, admitting representatives to the assembly, and regulating the town boundaries.
Connecticut's flagging interest in this territory, which had already, as their own deputy-governor had so prophetically told them in 1670,
'This subject of the Huguenots in Rhode Island has aroused considerable historical discussion and has been adequately treated in E. R. Potter's French Settlements in R. I. ( Rider's Hist. Tracts, No. 5), E. B. Carpenter's Huguenot influence in R. I. (R. I. H. S. Proc., 1885-86, p. 46), and C. W. Baird's Hugue- not emigration to America, ii, 291-328.
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cost them more than it was worth, was suddenly revived by an opinion rendered in their favor by the attorney-general. In October, 1696, he reported upon a petition handed in by the Narragansett proprictors over a year previous, that the government of the said country was vested in Connecticut on account of the priority of her charter. Although from the many errors of fact that it contained the document seems to have been carelessly drawn, it was most unpropitious for Rhode Island in that it was chiefly confined to the legal aspects of the ease. Rhode Island's claim to the territory was primarily a moral one, and if the dispute had been decided solely by reference to chartered rights, it is doubtful whether she would have received a verdict in her favor. But the reply of the attorney-general was merely the opinion of one man, and before any final action could be taken in the matter, the Rhode Island agent had entered a counter- petition. The result of it all was that no action was taken beyond advising both colonics that the controversy should be settled by arbitration.
Now that a cessation from hostilities with the French on the Canadian border was in sight,1 it seemed a most opportune time for the crown authorities to impose greater restraints on colonial com- merce for the advantage of English merchants. The Navigation Acts, which had been enacted several years before to benefit home markets, had fallen into considerable disuse and needed some strong and energetic administrator to revive and enforce them. If the New England colonists heeded these laws, they could neither procure other than English products nor export to any but English marts; and now, having inspired the fear that they might learn to manufacture for themselves, they were inflicted with a law which forbade the exportation of any wool products, even from one colony to another. The home authorities intended to crush at the outset any possible rivalry whereby the English merchants would lose colonial customers. As a preliminary step to the introduction of the new regime, on May 15, 1696, the management of colonial affairs, which for over two decades had been in the hands of a committee of the Privy Council, was entrusted to the body known as the "Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations". Although the ostensible object of this board was to promote trade and improve the plantations, its creation was a clear indication of the policy to follow.
Another matter in the colonies demanding the immediate attention of
1The Treaty of Ryswick brought about peace on Sept. 20, 1697.
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the home government was the prevalence of smuggling and of piracy. The restraints on colonial trade were so oppressive and yet so easily evaded that the incentive to import goods without paying duties was too tempting to be resisted. Furthermore, during the late war with France, naval operations had been chiefly carried on by a class of vessels fitted out at individual expense, commissioned to attack the enemy of the colony governors, and known as privateers. Since the share that they obtained in prizes was undoubtedly large, the close of the war found these vessels most unwilling to give up their lucrative trade. Some of them turned to preying upon any foreign commerce that they met with, until it finally became a recognized fact that the distinction between privateering and piracy was being quite disre- garded. The English authorities complained, and perhaps rightly, that colonial governors issued commissions to known pirates, that American ports served as harbors of refuge for these transgressors of the law, and that the trade was one of which men high in colonial office were the silent, if not the open, abettors.
These pressing needs, combined with the necessity of obtaining a better state of colonial union, required the appointment of a general governor who would be a fearless and energetic observer of duty, and one who was not in sympathy with the desires and aspirations of the colonists. A man of this sort was found in the person of Richard Coote, Earl of Bellomont. In June, 1697, he was commissioned as governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and also of New York, thus consolidating to a greater extent the northern colonies.
One of the first cares was to repress the piracy which existed throughout the colonies, and in which Rhode Islanders, according to contemporary letters, were considered the worst offenders. Indeed, nearly all the transactions which Rhode Island was to have with Bellomont during his short rule were to be in regard to this one matter. Nor was her reputation in this respect entirely undeserved. Many of the letters written in denunciation of her conduct, it is true, were drawn up by her enemies. Governor Fletcher, of New York, displeased because of her refusal to send him troops, wrote in 1696: "Rhode Island pays no obedience to any command from the crown", and men like Randolph, Brinley, and others were ever ready to convert a rumor of her misbehavior into accepted fact. But there is scarcely a doubt that the commodiousness of her numerous harbors, the independence and habitual fearlessness of those of her inhabitants who followed the sea, and the inability of her lawmakers to enforce all of their decrees, contributed to make the colony a notorious resort
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for privateers and pirates. Even before Bellomont's appointment the Board of Trade had written to Rhode Island in February, 1697, cautioning her that "due care should be taken for the future, that no pirates or sca-robbers be anywhere sheltered or entertained, under the severest penalties". Thus the letter continucs : "We are obliged, in giving you this notice, to recommend it so much tlic more particu- larly to your care, by reason that upon occasion of the late trials of some of Avery's crew here, several informations have been transmitted to us, wherein mention is made of Rhode Island as a place where pirates arc ordinarily too kindly entertained; some of the expressions in those papers are as follows :
" 'William Mews, a pirate, fitted out at Rhode Island. Thomas Jones is concerned in the Old Bark, with Captain Want, and lives in Rhode Island. Want is gone into the Gulf of Persia, and in all probability is either at Rhode Island or Carolina by this time. Want's wife lives there. Want broke up there about three years ago, after a good voyage, and spent his money there, and in Pennsylvania.'
"These, and such like things, we say, obliges us to more strictly require of you that an extraordinary care be henceforwards taken in that Island for the preventing and suppressing such like practices ; and particularly that all persons who are anyways involved in that guilt, be sought out and punished, according to the utmost severity of the law; of which we expect a particular account".1
A few months later, in April, 1697, came another letter of complaint, this time in regard to Rhode Island's neglect to prosecute those who cvaded the payment of duties and customs. The colony, to be sure, had enacted, in July, 1696, that no vessel owner could procure a com- mission unless he gave a bond of one thousand pounds that he would "not proceed upon any unlawful act". But as the king now wrote, the present "abuses must needs arise, either from the insolvency of the persons who are accepted for security, or from the remissness or connivance of such as have been, or are Governors".2 Since the letter further threatened Rhode Island with forfeiture of her charter, if the trade laws were continued to be evaded, it can be easily seen that the matter was assuming considerable importance in the eyes of the English authorities.
The foregoing extracts sufficiently show to what an extent Rhode Island was engaged in this illegal traffic. Bellomont spent the first
R. I. C. R., iii, 322.
2R. I. C. R., iii, 326. Even as far back as 1683, Governor Coddington had been accused of refusing to arrest certain pirates. (See R. I. H. S. Publ., vii, 196.)
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year of his administration in New York, not arriving at Boston until May, 1699. In the meanwhile the subject of piracy continued to occupy the attention of the Rhode Island colonists to the exclusion of most other matters. Brenton, her London agent, returned in January, 1698, armed with two important papers-one appointing a commission to administer to Governor Clarke the oath concerning the acts of trade, and the other establishing a court of admiralty, of which Peleg Sanford was to be judge and Nathaniel Coddington register. Clarke, on the ground that he was a Quaker, absolutely refused to take the oath, and also tried to oppose in every way the appointment of Sanford as judge. Brenton immediately forwarded an account of these trans- actions to the Board of Trade and urged that a warrant be issued against Clarke, who, it must be confessed, had shown great lack of tact in the affair. Obstinately assertive of his supposed rights and openly opposed to the royal interests when Rhode Island most needed royal protection, it is a matter of little surprise that we find Clarke displaced before another meeting of the assembly by a new governor. With him the Quaker government in Rhode Island may be said to have come to an end.1
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