The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume I Part 18
[Footnote 171: (Collections of the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society, Second Series, Vol. VIII., pp. 73-78.) The liberty of worship, which they declared had been the object of their emigration to Ma.s.sachusetts, had never been denied them; had been a.s.sured to them by both Charles the First and Charles the Second. The King did not propose to impose the use of the prayer book upon any inhabitant of the colony, but insisted upon freedom of worship for each inhabitant; whereas the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Court, under the pretext of liberty of worship for Congregationalists, denied freedom of worship to all others not Congregationalists.]
[Footnote 172: "This extraordinary law continued in force until the dissolution of the Government; it being repealed in appearance only,[173] after the restoration of King Charles the Second. Had they been deprived of their civil privileges in England by Act of Parliament, unless they would join in communion with the Churches there, it might very well have been the first on the roll of grievances. But such were the requisites for Church membership here, that the grievance is abundantly greater." (Hutchinson's History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Vol.
I., pp. 25, 26.)]
[Footnote 173: _Note_ by the historian.--"The minister was to certify that the candidates for freedom were of orthodox principles and of good lives and conversation."]
[Footnote 174: Hutchinson's History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Vol. I., p.
431. "The test (that 'no man could have a share in the administration of civil government, or give his voice in any election, unless he was a member of one of the Churches') went a great way towards producing general uniformity. He that did not conform was deprived of more civil privileges than a nonconformist is deprived of by the Test Act in England. Both the one and the other must have occasioned much formality and hypocrisy. The mysteries of our holy religion have been prost.i.tuted to mere secular views and advantages."--_Ib._, p. 432.]
[Footnote 175: (Palfrey, Vol. III., p. 353, in a note.) Mr. Hildreth states the case as follows: "Encouraged by the King's demand for toleration, construed as superseding the 'by-laws' of the colony, the Baptists ventured to hold a service in their new meeting-house. For this they were summoned before the magistrates, and when they refused to desist the doors were nailed up and the following order posted upon them: 'All persons are to take notice that, by order of the Court, the doors of this house are shut up, and that they are inhibited to hold any meeting therein, or to open the doors thereof without licence from authority, till the General Court take further order, as they will answer the contrary at their peril.' When the General Court met the Baptists pleaded that their house was built before any law was made to prevent it. This plea was so far allowed that their past offences were forgiven; but they were not allowed to open the house." (History of the United States, Vol. I., Chap, xiv., p. 501.)]
[Footnote 176: (Hutchinson's History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Vol. I., p.
320.) After quoting this law, the historian remarks: "I know of nothing which can be urged in anywise tending to increase the severity of this law, unless it be human infirmity, and the many instances in history of persons of every religion being fully persuaded that the indulgence of any other was a toleration of impiety and brought down the judgments of Heaven, and therefore justified persecution. This law lost the colony many friends."--_Ib._
The law punishing attendance at Quaker meetings was accompanied by another containing the following clauses:
"Pride, in men wearing long hair like women's hair; others wearing borders of hair, and cutting, curling, and immodest laying out their hair, princ.i.p.ally in the younger sort. Grand Jurors to present and the Court to punish all offenders by admonition, fine, or correction, at discretion."
"Excess in apparel, strange new fashions, naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s and arms, and pinioned superfluous ribbands on hair and apparel. The Court to fine offenders at discretion."
"A loose and sinful custom of riding from town to town, men and women together, under pretence of going to lectures, but really to drink and revel in taverns, tending to debauchery and unchast.i.ty. All single persons, being offenders, to be bound in their good behaviour, with sureties in twenty pounds fine, or suffer fine and imprisonment."--_Ib._, pp. 320, 321, in a note.
The foregoing pages show the notions and appreciation of the religious rights and liberties by the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay rulers and legislators in regard to Episcopalians, Baptists, and Quakers. The above quoted clauses of their law pa.s.sed in 1667, nearly fifty years after the establishment of their government, ill.u.s.trate their ideas of individual liberty.]
[Footnote 177: Palfrey, Vol. III., p. 353. Much has been written about these Acts of Trade and Navigation, as if they were acts of royal despotism and designed to oppress the colonies for the benefit of England; whereas they originated with the Commonwealth, and were designed to benefit the colonies as well as the mother country. "After the decapitation of Charles I.," says Minot, "the confused situation of England prevented any particular attention to the colony until Cromwell's Government. The very qualities which existed in the character of the inhabitants to render them displeasing to the late King, operated as much with the Protector in their favour; and he diverted all complaints of their enemies against them. Yet he procured the Navigation Act to be pa.s.sed by the Parliament, which was a source of future difficulty to the colony, though it was evaded in New England at first (by Cromwell's connivance with the rulers of Ma.s.sachusetts Colony), as they still traded in all parts and enjoyed a privilege, peculiar to themselves, of importing their goods into England free of all customs."
(Minot's Continuation of the History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, published according to Act of Congress, Vol. I., p. 40.)
Mr. Hildreth, referring to the early part of Charles the Second's restoration, says: "As yet the Acts of Trade were hardly a subject of controversy. The Parliament, which had welcomed back the King, had indeed re-enacted with additional clauses the ordinance of 1651--an Act which, by restricting exportations from America to English, Irish, and Colonial vessels, substantially excluded foreign ships from all Anglo-American harbours. To this, which might be regarded as a benefit to New England ship-owners, a provision was added still further to isolate the colonies (from foreign countries), the more valuable colonial staples, mentioned by the name, and hence known as 'enumerated articles,' being required to be shipped exclusively to England or some English colony. The exportation to the colonies was also prohibited of any product of Europe, unless in English vessels and from England, except horses, servants and provisions from Ireland and Scotland. But of the 'enumerated articles' none were produced in New England; while salt for fisheries, and wine from Madeira and the Azores, branches of foreign trade in which New England was deeply interested, were specially exempted from the operation of an Act which had chiefly in view the more southern colonies." (Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol I., Chap xiv.' p. 473.)]
[Footnote 178: History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap. xviii., pp.
461, 462.]
[Footnote 179: The following is a specimen of the manner in which they interpreted their Charter to extend their territory. Having interpreted their Charter to exempt themselves from all responsibility to the Crown for their legislation or acts, they devised a new interpretation of their Charter in order to extend their territory to the north and north-east. The Charter limited their territories to three miles of the north bank of the Merrimac. At the end of twenty years they decided that the Charter meant three miles north of the most northern land or elbow of the Merrimac, and then not follow within three miles of the north bank of the river to its mouth, but a straight line east and west, which would give to their Plantation, Maine and a large part of New Hampshire, to the exclusion of the original patentees. When the Royal Commissioners, as directed by the King, came to investigate the complaints on this disputed boundary of territory, they decided against the pretensions of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay rulers, and appointed magistrates, etc., to give effect to their decision; but the authorities of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, acknowledging no superior under heaven, resumed control of the territory in dispute as soon as the Commissioners had left the country. Mr. Hildreth says:
"Shortly after the departure of the Royal Commissioners, Leverett, now Major-General of the Colony, was sent to Maine, with three other magistrates and a body of horse, to re-establish the authority of Ma.s.sachusetts. In spite of the remonstrances of Col. Nichols at New York (the head of the Royal Commission), the new Government lately set up was obliged to yield. Several persons were punished for speaking irreverently of the re-established authority of Ma.s.sachusetts."
(Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. I., Chap. xiv., pp. 473, 474.) For eleven years the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Government maintained this ascendency against all complaints and appeals to England, when in 1677, as Mr. Hildreth says, "After hearing the parties, the Privy Council decided, in accordance with the opinion of the two Chief Justices, that the Ma.s.sachusetts patent did not give any territory more than three miles distant from the left or north bank of the Merrimac. This construction, which set aside the pretensions of Ma.s.sachusetts to the province of Maine, as well as to that part of New Hampshire east of the Merrimac, appeared so plain to English lawyers that the agents (of Ma.s.sachusetts) hardly attempted a word in defence." (History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap. xviii., pp. 496, 497.)
It has been shown that as early as the second year of the civil war in England, the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Court pa.s.sed an Act, in 1643, declaring it a capital crime for any one in their jurisdiction to advocate or support the cause of the King; some years afterwards they pa.s.sed an Act forbidding all trade with the other American colonies who would not renounce their allegiance to the King; in their addresses to the Parliament and Cromwell, in 1651 and 1654, as shown above, they claimed, as a ground of merit for peculiar favour, that they had done their utmost, by devotional and material aid of men and means, in support of the Parliamentary, and afterwards regicide party, from the beginning to the end of the war--so that loyalists as well as churchmen were treated by them as outcasts and aliens--and now, after having begged, in language of sycophantic subserviency, the Royal pardon for the past, and obtained it on certain conditions, they claim the boon but refuse to fulfil the conditions, making all sorts of excuses, promises, and evasions for twenty years--professing and promising one thing in London, doing the opposite in Ma.s.sachusetts, protracting where they dare not resist, but practically doing to the vacating of the Charter what Mr.
Bancroft states in the pregnant sentences above quoted in the text.]
CHAPTER VI.
Ma.s.sACHUSETTS DURING THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF CHARLES THE SECOND AND JAMES THE SECOND, FROM 1680 TO 1688--THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES AND MANNER OF CANCELLING THE FIRST CHARTER.
A crisis was now approaching. The state of things shown in the latter part of the preceding chapter could not be suffered always to continue.
Means must be devised to bring it to an end.
The Ma.s.sachusetts Court had sent successive agents to England to explain and to make promises concerning many things complained of, to crave indulgence and delay in other things which they could not explain or justify; but they prohibited their agents, by private instructions, from conceding anything which the Charter, as they interpreted it, had given them--namely, absolute independence. But this double game was nearly played out. Party struggles in England had absorbed the attention of the King and Cabinet, and caused a public and vacillating policy to be pursued in regard to Ma.s.sachusetts; but the King's Government were at length roused to decisive action, and threatened the colony with a writ of _quo warranto_ in respect to matters so often demanded and as often evaded.
The Ma.s.sachusetts Court met forthwith, pa.s.sed an Act to control the commission of the King's Collector, Edward Randolph, and another Act charging their own newly-appointed Collector to look strictly after the enforcement of the Acts of Trade (but in reality to counteract them); repealed another Act which imposed a penalty for plotting the overthrow of the Colonial Const.i.tution--an Act levelled against Randolph; pa.s.sed another Act subst.i.tuting the word "Jurisdiction" for the word "Commonwealth" in their laws. They authorized their agents merely to lay these concessions before the King, and humbly hoped they would satisfy his Majesty. They also bribed clerks of the Privy Council to keep them informed of its proceedings on Ma.s.sachusetts affairs, and offered a bribe of 2,000 to King Charles himself. Mr. Hildreth says (1683): "On the appearance of these agents at Court, with powers so restricted, a _quo warranto_ was threatened forthwith unless they were furnished with ampler authority. Informed of this threat, the General Court (of Ma.s.sachusetts), after great debates, authorized their agents to consent to the regulation of anything wherein the Government might _ignorantly_, or _through mistake_, have deviated from the Charter; to accept, indeed, any demands consistent with the Charter (as they interpreted it), the existing Government established under it, and the 'main ends of our predecessors in coming hither,' which main ends were defined by them to be 'our liberties and privileges in matters of religion and worship of G.o.d, which you are, therefore, in no wise to consent to any infringement of.' They were authorized to give up Maine to the King, and even to tender him a private gratuity of two thousand guineas. Bribes were quite fashionable at Charles's Court; the King and his servants were accustomed to take them. The Ma.s.sachusetts agents[180]
had expended considerable sums to purchase a favour, or to obtain information, and by having clerks of the Privy Council in their pay they were kept well informed of the secret deliberations of that body. But this offer (of a bribe of two thousand guineas to the King), unskilfully managed, and betrayed by Cranfield, the lately appointed Royal Governor of New Hampshire, who had advised the magistrates to make it, exposed the Colony to blame and ridicule."[181]
"If a liberty of appeal to England were insisted on, the agents were 'not to include the colony in any act or consent of theirs, but to crave leave to transmit the same to the General Court for their further consideration.' They were 'not to make any alteration of the qualifications that were required by law, as at present established, respecting the _admission of freemen_.'"[182]
It having appeared, on the perusal of the commission of the Ma.s.sachusetts agents by Sir Lionel Jenkins, Secretary of State, that they did not possess the powers required to enable them to act, they were informed by Lord Radnor that "the Council had unanimously agreed to report to his Majesty, that unless the agents speedily obtained such powers as might render them capable to satisfy in all points, a _quo warranto_ should proceed."
"Upon receipt of these advices," says Mr. Hutchinson, "it was made a question, not in the General Court only, but amongst all the inhabitants, whether to surrender or not. The opinions of many of the ministers, and their arguments in support of them, were given in writing, and in general it was thought better to die by the hands of others than by their own.[183] The address was agreed upon by the General Court; another was prepared and sent through the colony, to be signed by the several inhabitants, which the agents were to present or not, as they thought proper; and they were (privately) to deliver up the deeds of the Province of Maine, if required, and it would tend to preserve their Charter, otherwise not; and they were to make no concessions of any privileges conferred on the colony by the Charter."[184] (That is, according to their interpretation and pretensions.)
"Governor Bradstreet and the moderate party were inclined to authorise the agents to receive the King's commands. The magistrates pa.s.sed a vote to that effect. But all the zeal and obstinacy of the theocratic party had been roused by the present crisis--a zeal resulting, as hot zeal often does, in the ultimate loss of what it was so anxious to save."[185]
The agents of the colony were not willing to undertake the defence and management of the question upon the Charter in Westminster Hall. The writ of _quo warranto_, which summoned the Corporation of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay to defend their acts against the complaints and charges made against them, was issued the 27th of June, 1683, and on the 20th of July "It was ordered by the Privy Council, 'that Mr. Edward Randolph be sent to New England with the notification of the said _quo warranto_, which he was to deliver to the said Governor and Company of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, and thereupon to return to give his Majesty an account of his proceedings therein.'"[186] This writ was accompanied by a declaration from the King "that the private interests and properties of all persons within the colony should be continued and preserved to them, so that no man should receive any prejudice in his freehold or estate;" also, "that in case the said Corporation of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay should, before the prosecution had upon the said _quo warranto_, make a full submission and entire resignation to his pleasure, he would then regulate their Charter (as stated in another place, by adding supplementary clauses) in such a manner as should be for his service and the good of the colony, without any other alterations than such as he should find necessary for the better support of his Government."[187]
On the issue of the writ of _quo warranto_, the business of the colony's agents in London was at an end. They returned home, and arrived in Boston the 23rd of October, 1683; and the same week Randolph arrived with the _quo warranto_ and the King's accompanying declaration. The announcement of this decisive act on the part of the King produced a profound sensation throughout the colony, and gave rise to the question, "What shall Ma.s.sachusetts do?" One part of the colony advocated _submission_; another party advocated _resistance_. The former were called the "Moderate party," the latter the "Patriot party"--the commencement of the two parties which were afterwards known as United Empire Loyalists and Revolutionists.[188] The Moderate party was led by the memorable Governor Bradstreet, Stoughton, and Dudley, and included a majority of the a.s.sistants or magistrates, called the "Upper branch of the Government." The Independence party was headed by the Deputy Governor Danforth, Gookin, and Nowell, and included a majority of the House of Deputies, over whose elections and proceedings the elders or ministers exerted a potent influence.[189]
Governor Bradstreet and a majority of the a.s.sistants, or magistrates, adopted the following resolution:
"The magistrates have voted that an humble address be sent to his Majesty by this ship, declaring that, upon a serious consideration of his Majesty's gracious intimations in his former letters, and more particularly in his late declaration, that his pleasure and purpose is only to regulate our Charter in such a manner as shall be for his service and the good of this his colony, and without any other alteration than what is necessary for the support of his Government here, we will not presume to contend with his Majesty in a Court of law, but humbly lay ourselves at his Majesty's feet, in submission to his pleasure so declared, and that we have resolved by the next opportunity to send our agents empowered to receive his Majesty's commands accordingly. And, for saving a default for non-appearance upon the return of the writ of _quo warranto_, that some person or persons be appointed and empowered, by letter of attorney, to appear and make defence until our agents may make their appearance and submission as above.
"The magistrates have pa.s.sed this without reference to the consent of their brethren the deputies hereto.
(Signed) "EDMUND RAWSON, _Secretary_.
"15th November, 1683."
This resolution was laid before the House of Deputies and debated by them a fortnight, when the majority of them adopted the following resolution:
"November 30, 1683.--The deputies consent not, but adhere to their former bills.
"WILLIAM TERRY, _Clerk_."[190]
"They voted instead," says Mr. Hildreth, "an Address to the King, praying forbearance; but they authorized Robert Humphreys, a London barrister and the legal adviser of the agents, to enter an appearance and to retain counsel, requesting him 'to leave no stone unturned that may be of service either to the case itself, or the spinning out of the time as much as possibly may be.' No less than three letters were written to Humphreys; money was remitted; but all hopes of defence were futile. Before the letters arrived in London, a default had already been recorded. That default could not be got off, and judgment was entered the next year p.r.o.nouncing the Charter void."[191]
The manner in which the questions at issue were put to a popular vote in Ma.s.sachusetts was unfair and misleading; the epithets applied to the "Moderate" or loyal party were offensive and unjust; and the statements of Palfrey, respecting the acts of the King immediately following the vacation of the Charter, are very disingenuous, not to say untrue.
The King had expressly and repeatedly declared that he would not proceed to vacate the Charter if they would submit to his decision on the six grounds mentioned in his first letter to them, June 28, 1662, twenty years before, as the conditions of continuing the Charter, and which they had persistently evaded and resisted; that his decision should be in the form of certain "Regulations" for the future administration of the Charter, and not the vacation of it. Every reader knows the difference between a Royal Charter of incorporation and the Royal instructions issued twenty years afterwards to remedy irregularities and abuses which had been shown to have crept in, and practised in the local administration of the Charter. Yet the ruling party in Ma.s.sachusetts Bay did not put the question as accepting the King's offers, but as of vacating the Charter. This was raising a false issue, and an avowed imputation and contempt of the King. It is true that Dr. Palfrey and other modern New England historians have said that Charles the Second had from the beginning intended to abolish the Charter; that the "vacation of the Charter was a foregone conclusion." In reply to which it may be said that this is mere a.s.sumption, unsupported by facts; that if Charles the Second had wished or intended to vacate the Charter, he had the amplest opportunity and reasons to do so, in the zenith of his popularity and power, when they refused to comply with the conditions on which he proposed to pardon and obliterate the past and continue the Charter, and when they resisted his Commissioners, and employed military force to oppose the exercise of their powers, and set aside their decisions; instead of which he remonstrated with them for more than twenty years, and then gave them long notice and choice to retain the Charter with his "Regulations" on the disputed points, or contest the Charter, as to their observance of it, in a Court of law. Under the impulse and guidance of violent counsels they chose the latter, and lost their Charter. In their very last address to the King, they gratefully acknowledged his kindness in all his despatches and treatment of them, contrary to the statements and imputations of modern New England historians; yet they denied him the authority universally acknowledged and exercised by Queen Victoria and English Courts of law over the legislative, judicial, and even administrative acts of every province of the British Empire. Dr. Palfrey says: "In the Upper branch of the Government there was found at length a _servile_ majority;" but "the deputies were prepared for no such _suicide_, though there were not wanting faint hearts and grovelling aims among them."[192] At the head of what Dr. Palfrey terms the "servile majority" was the venerable Governor Bradstreet, now more than ninety years of age, the only survivor of the original founders of the colony, who had been a magistrate more than fifty years, more than once Governor, always a faithful and safe counsellor, the agent of the colony in England, and obtaining in June, 1662, the King's letter of pardon--oblivion of the past and promised continuance of the Charter on certain conditions--a letter which the Colonial Court said filled them with inexpressible joy and grat.i.tude (see above, page 141), who then advised them to comply with the King's requirements, and who, after twenty years' further experience and knowledge of public affairs and parties, advises them to pursue the same course for which he is now termed "servile," and ranked with cowards and men of "grovelling aims," advising the colony to commit political "suicide." The result showed who were the real authors of the "suicide," and Dr. Palfrey forcibly states the result of their doings in the following words:
"Ma.s.sachusetts, as a body politic, was now no more. The elaborate fabric, that had been fifty-four years in building, was levelled to the dust. The hopes of the fathers were found to be mere dreams. It seemed that their brave struggles had brought no result. The honoured ally (Ma.s.sachusetts) of the Protector (Cromwell) of England lay under the feet of Charles the Second. It was on the Charter granted to Roswell and his a.s.sociates, Governor and Company of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, that the structure of the cherished inst.i.tutions of Ma.s.sachusetts, religious and civil, had been reared. The abrogation of that Charter swept the whole away. Ma.s.sachusetts, in English law, was again what it had been before James the First made a grant of it to the Council of New England. It belonged to the King of England, by virtue of the discovery of the Cabots. No less than this was the import of the decree in Westminster Hall. Having secured its great triumph, the Court had no thought of losing anything by the weakness of compa.s.sion. The person selected by the King to govern the people of his newly-acquired province was Colonel Piercy Kirk. That campaign in the West of England had not yet taken place which has made the name of Kirk immortal; but fame enough had gone abroad of his brutal character, to make his advent an antic.i.p.ation of horror to those whom he was appointed to govern. It was settled that he was to be called 'His Majesty's Lieutenant and Governor-General,' and that his authority should be unrestricted."[193]
This quotation from Dr. Palfrey suggests one or two remarks, and requires correction, as it is as disingenuous in statement as it is eloquent in diction. He admits and a.s.sumes the validity of the judicial act by which the Charter was declared forfeited; though the loyalty of this decision was denied by the opposing party in Ma.s.sachusetts, who denied that any English Court, or that even the King himself, had any authority in Ma.s.sachusetts to disallow any of its acts or decisions, much less to vacate its Charter, and professed to continue its elections of deputies, etc., and to pa.s.s and administer laws as aforetime. Dr.
Palfrey's language presents all such pretensions and proceedings as baseless and puerile.
Dr. Palfrey states what is true, that the Ma.s.sachusetts Government had been the "ally" of Cromwell; but this they had denied in their addresses to Charles the Second. (See above, pp. 153-9.)
It is hardly ingenuous or correct in Dr. Palfrey speaking of Col. Kirk's appointment of the "newly-acquired Province." The office extended over New Hampshire, Maine, and Plymouth as well as Ma.s.sachusetts; but Kirk never was Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, for before his commission and instructions were completed, all was annulled by the demise of King Charles, which took place the 6th of February, 1685. Mr. Hutchinson says: "Before any new Government was settled, King Charles died. Mr.