II. 1683. BOOK overwhelmed by their calamities, voted an address of submission to the king; but the house of delegates, animated with the general feeling of the people, and supported by the approbation of the clergy, rejected the address, and adhered to their former resolutions. The process of quo warranto was in consequence urged forward with all the expedition that was compatible with forensic formality. Among other instances of tyrannical contempt of justice, the summons which required the colony to defend itself was transmitted so tardily, that before compliance with it was possible, the space as1684. signed for such compliance had elapsed. At length, in Their char- Trinity Term of the following year, judgment was pronounced by the English Court of King's Bench against the governor and company of Massachusetts, "That their letters patent and the enrolment thereof be cancelled;" and in the year 2 July, 1685. after, an official copy of this judgment was received by the secretary of the general court.1 ter ad judged to be forfeited. Thus was the system of liberty that had flourished in Massachusetts overthrown by the descendant of the princes whose tyranny had led to its establishment; after being defended by the children of the original settlers with the same resolute unbending virtue that their fathers had exerted in founding and rearing it. The venerable Bradstreet, who had accompanied the first emigrants to Massachusetts in 1630, was still alive, and was governor of the colony at the period of the subversion of those institutions which he had contributed originally to plant in the desert, and had so long continued to adorn and enjoy. Perhaps he now discerned the vanity of those sentiments that had prompted so many of the co-evals whom he had survived, to lament their deaths as premature. But the aged eyes that beheld this eclipse of New England's prosperity, were not yet to close till they had seen the return of better days. That the measures of the king were in the highest degree unjust and tyrannical, appears manifest beyond all decent denial; and that the legal adjudication by which he masked his tyranny was never annulled by the English parliament, is a circumstance very little creditable to English justice. The 1 Hutchinson. Chalmers. IV. 1685. House of Commons, indeed, shortly after the Revolution, CHA P. inflamed with indignation at the first recital of the transactions which we have now witnessed, passed a resolution declaring "that those quo warrantos against the charters of New England were illegal and void ;" and followed up this resolution by a bill for restoring the charter of Massachusetts. But the progress of the bill was arrested in the House of Lords by a sudden prorogation of parliament: and the Commons were afterwards prevailed with to depart from their purpose by the arguments of Treby, Somers, and Holt,1 whose eminent faculties and constitutional principles could not exempt them. from the influence of a superstitious prejudice, generated by their professional habits, in favour of the sacredness of legal formalities. Chalmers. Hutchinson. CHAPTER V. II. Designs-and Death of Charles the Second.-Government of Massachusetts under a temporary Commission from James the Second.-Andros appointed Governor of New England. Submission of Rhode Island.-Effort to preserve the Charter of Connecticut.-Oppressive Government of Andros.-Colonial Policy of the King. -Sir William Phipps.-Indian Hostilities renewed by the Intrigues of the French. -Insurrection at Boston.—Andros deposed-and the ancient Government restored.-Connecticut and Rhode Island resume their Charters.-William and Mary proclaimed.-War with the French and Indians.—Sir William Phipps conquers Acadie.-Ineffectual Expedition against Quebec.-Impeachment of Andros by the Colony, discouraged by the English Ministers--and dismissed.— The King refuses to restore the ancient Constitution of Massachusetts.-Tenor of the new Charter.-Sir William Phipps Governor.-The New England Witchcraft.-Death of Phipps.-War with the French and Indians.-Loss of Acadie.— Peace of Ryswick.-Moral and political State of New England. BOOK So eager was Charles to complete the execution of his long cherished designs on Massachusetts, that in November 1684, 1685. immediately after the judgment of the Court of King's Bench against its charter was pronounced, he began to make arrangements for the new government of the colony. Though not even a complaint had been pretended against New Plymouth, he scrupled not to involve this settlement in the same fate; and as if he purposed to consummate his tyranny and vengeance by a measure that should surpass the darkest anticipations entertained in New England, he selected as the delegate of his prerogative, a man than whom it would be difficult in the whole records of human cruelty and wickedness to find one who has excited to a greater degree the abhorrence and indignation of his fellow-creatures. The notorious Colonel Kirke, whose brutal and sanguinary excesses have secured him an immortality of infamy in the history of England, was appointed governor of Massachusetts, New V. 1685. Designs Hampshire, Maine, and New Plymouth; and it was deter- C H A P. mined that no representative assembly of the colonists should be permitted to exist, but that the legislative and executive powers should be invested in the governor and a council appointed during the royal pleasure. This arbitrary policy was approved by all the ministers of Charles, except the Marquis of Halifax, who espoused the cause of the colonists with a generous zeal, and warmly but vainly urged that they were entitled to enjoy the same laws and institutions that were established in England.1 Though Kirke had not yet committed the enormities by which he was destined to illustrate his name in the west of England, he had already given such indications of his disposition in the government of Tangier, that the tidings of his appointment filled the inhabitants of the colony with horror and dismay. But before the royal commission and instructions to this ruffian were completed, the career of the monarch himself was interrupted by death; and death and Kirke was reserved to contribute by his atrocities in England to bring hatred and exile on Charles's successor. This successor, James the Second, from whose stern inflexible temper and lofty ideas of royal prerogative, the most gloomy presages of tyranny had been drawn, was proclaimed in Boston with melancholy solemnity. 2 of Charles the Second. These presages were verified by the conduct of the new sovereign. Soon after his accession to the throne, he appointed, by special commission, a provincial government of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and New Plymouth, to be administered by a president and council selected from the inhabitants of Massachusetts, whose functions were merely Governexecutive, and were to endure till the establishment of a fixed ment of and permanent system. The functionaries thus appointed setts under were directed to concede liberty of conscience to all persons, but to bestow peculiar encouragement on the votaries of the mission church of England; to determine all suits originating within from James 1 The French court and the Duke of York remonstrated with Charles on the impolicy of retaining in office a man who had professed such sentiments. Barillon's Correspondence in the Appendix to Fox's History of James the Second. "Even at this early period," says Mr. Fox, "a question relative to North American liberty, and even to North American taxation, was considered as the test of principles friendly or adverse to arbitrary power at home." 2 Hutchinson. Chalmers. Massachu a tempo rary com the Second. II. May, 1686. BOOK the colony, but to admit appeals from their sentences to the king; and to defray the expenses of their government by 1685. levying the taxes previously imposed. This commission was appointed to be laid before the general court at Boston, not as still considered a body administering legal authority, but as a convocation of individuals of the greatest influence and consideration in the province. In answer to the communication of its contents, the court voted a unanimous resolution in which they protested that the inhabitants of Massachusetts were deprived of the rights of freemen by the system of government which had been announced to them; and that it deeply concerned both those who introduced and those who were subjected to the operation of this system, to reflect how far it was safe to pursue it. For themselves, they declared that if the newly appointed officers should think proper to exercise their functions, though they could never regard them as invested with constitutional power, they would demean themselves, notwithstanding, as loyal subjects, and humbly make their addresses to God, and in due time to their prince for relief. The president named in the commission was Dudley, who had lately been one of the deputies of the province to England, and whose conduct had justified, in some degree, the jealousy with which the colonists ever regarded the persons to whom they were constrained to intrust that important office. The patriotic virtue of this man, without being utterly dissolved, was relaxed by the beams of regal splendour; and he had not been able to look on the pomp and show of aristocratical institutions with philosophic composure or undesiring eyes. Despairing of his ability at once to serve and gratify his country, he applied himself with more success to cultivate his own interest at the English court: and in pursuing this crooked policy, he seems to have flattered himself with the hope that the interest of his fellow-citizens might be more effectually promoted by his own advancement to official pre-emi nence among them, than by the exclusion which he would incur, in common with themselves, by a stricter adherence to the line of integrity. Though he accepted the commission, and persuaded the other persons who were associated with him to imitate his example, he continued to demonstrate a friendly regard to the rights of the people, and to the municipal insti |