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men, the New England colonies simply ignored it. During sixteen years the Massachusetts governor, annually elected by the people, never once took the oath which the Navigation Acts required of him; and when the courageous Leverett was called to account for this he answered, "The King can in reason do no less than let us enjoy our liberties and trade, for we have made this large plantation of our own charge, without any contribution from the crown." Four years after the Act of Navigation, in 1664, the English fleet brought royal commissioners to Boston, with instructions aiming at further aggression; and there was great dignity in the response of the General Court, made through Governor Endicott, October 30, 1664: "The all-knowing God he knowes our greatest ambition is to liue a poore and quiet life in a corner of the world, without offence to God or man. Wee came not into this wilderness to seeke great things to ourselves, and if any come after vs to seeke them heere, they will be disappointed." They then declare that to yield to the demands of the commissioners would be simply to destroy their own liberties, expressly guaranteed to them by their King, and dearer than their lives.

The commissioners visited other colonies and then returned to Boston, where they announced that they should hold a court at the house of Captain Thomas Breedon on Hanover Street, at 9 A.M., May 24, 1665. It happened that a brother officer of Captain Breedon, one Colonel Cartwright, who had come over with the commissioners, was then lying ill with the gout at this same house. At eight in the morning a messenger of the General Court appeared beneath the window, blew an alarum on the trumpet, and pro

claimed that the General Court protested against any such meeting. He then departed to make similar proclamation in other parts of the town; and when the royal commissioners came together they found nobody with whom to confer but the gouty and irate Colonel Cartwright, enraged at the disturbance of his morning slumbers. So perished all hope of coercing the Massachusetts colony at that time.

Thus early did the British yoke begin to make it-self felt as a grievance. The Massachusetts men discreetly allayed the effect of their protest by sending his Majesty a ship-load of masts, the freight on which cost the colony £1600. For ten years the quarrel subsided: England had trouble enough with her neighbors without meddling with the colonies. Then the contest revived, and while the colonies were in the death - struggle of Philip's war, Edward Randolph came as commissioner with a King's letter in 1675. Two years later the Massachusetts colonists made for the first time the distinct assertion to the King, while pledging their loyalty, that "the laws of England were bounded within the four seas, and did not reach America," giving as a reason for this, "they [the colonists] not being represented in Parliament." Then followed the long contest for the charter, while Edward Randolph, like a sort of Mephistopheles, was constantly coming and going between America and England with fresh complaints and new orders, crossing the Atlantic eight times in nine years, and having always, by his own statement, "pressed the necessity of a general Governor as absolutely necessary for the honor and service of the crown." All this long series of contests has been minutely narrated by Charles Deane with a thoroughness and clearness which would

have won him a world-wide reputation had they only been brought to bear upon the history of some little European state. Again and again, in different forms, the attempt was made to take away the charters of the colonies; and the opposition was usually led, at least in New England, by the clergy. Increase Mather, in 1683-84, addressed a town-meeting in opposition to one such demand, and openly counselled that they should return Naboth's answer when Ahab asked for his vineyard, that they would not give up the inheritance of their fathers.

It must be remembered that all the early charters were defective in this, (that they did not clearly define where the line was to be drawn between the rights of the local government and of the crown.) We can see now that such definition would have been impossible; even the promise given to Lord Baltimore that Maryland should have absolute self-government did not avert all trouble. It is also to be remembered that there were great legal difficulties in annulling a charter, so long as the instrument itself had not been reclaimed by the power that issued it. We read with surprise of a royal scheme thwarted by so simple a process as the hiding of the Connecticut charter in a hollow tree by William Wadsworth; but an almost vital importance was attached in those days to the actual possession of the instrument. It was considered the most momentous of all the Lord Chancellor's duties--indeed, that from which he had his name (cancellarius)--to literally cancel and obliterate the King's letters-patent under the great seal. Hence, although the old charter of Massachusetts was vacated October 23, 1684, it has always been doubted by lawyers whether this was ever legally done, inasmuch as

the old charter never was cancelled and hangs intact in the office of the Massachusetts Secretary of State to this day. In 1686 came the new governor for the colonies-not the dreaded Colonel Kirke, who had been fully expected, but the less formidable Sir Ed- 15 mund Andros.

The first foretaste of the provincial life, as distinct from the merely colonial, was in the short-lived career of this ruler. He came, a brilliant courtier, among the plain Americans; his servants wore gay liveries; Lady Andros had the first coach seen in Boston. He was at different times Governor of New York, President of New England, and Governor of Virginia. Everywhere he was received with aversion, but everywhere this was tempered by the feeling that it might have been worse, for it might have been Kirke. Yet there was exceeding frankness in the way the colonists met their would-be tyrant. When he visited Hartford, Connecticut, for instance, he met Dr. Hooker one morning, and said, "I suppose all the good people of Connecticut are fasting and praying on my account." The doctor replied, "Yes, we read, 'This kind goeth not out but by fasting and prayer."" And it required not merely these methods, but something more, to eject Sir Edmund at last from the colonies.

The three years' sway of Sir Edmund Andros accustomed the minds of the American colonists to a new relation between themselves and England. Even where the old relation was not changed in form it was changed in feeling. The colonies which had seemed most secure in their self-government were liable at any moment to become mere royal provinces. Indeed, they were officially informed that his

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Majesty had decided to unite under one government "all the English territories in America, from Delaware Bay to Nova Scotia," though this was not really attempted. Yet charters were taken away almost at random, colonies were divided or united without the consent of their inhabitants, and the violation of the right of local government was everywhere felt. But in various ways, directly or indirectly, the purposes of Andros were thwarted. When the English revolution of 1688 came, his power fell without a blow, and he found himself in the hands of the rebellious men of Boston. The day had passed by when English events could be merely ignored, and so every colony proclaimed with joy the accession of William and Mary. Such men as Jacob Leisler, in New York, Robert Treat, in Connecticut, and the venerable Simon Bradstreet-then eighty-seven years old-in Massachusetts, were at once recognized as the leaders of the people. There was some temporary disorder, joined with high hope, but the colonies never really regained what they had lost, and henceforth held, more or less distinctly, the character of provinces, until they took their destiny, long after, into their own hands. It needed almost a century to prepare them for that event, not only by their increasing sense of grievance, but by learning to stretch out their hands to one another.

With the fall of the colonial charters fell the New England confederacy that had existed from 1643. There were other plans of union: William Penn formed a very elaborate one in 1698; others labored afterwards in pamphlets to modify his plan or to suggest their own. On nine different occasions, between 1684 and 1751, three or more colonies met in council,

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