kindly to any appointee of a throne they were determined to find tyrannical.

Of course the opposition was by no means unanimous. Quite a few persons there were in Boston and its nearby towns to whom the old régime, with its subserviency to men like the Mathers, had been noxious in the extreme, and they naturally welcomed the change. But to most of those who in lineage, sentiment, and habit, represented the first planters the foisting upon New England of a royal governor, bound in loyalty to a far-off king, was an affront to be neither forgiven nor condoned. Though the holder of this office had been a man of superhuman breadth and of extraordinary generosity he would not have been acceptable to this portion of the inhabitants. William Phips had been indigenous to a degree found in no man elected by the people. But he suited neither the Mathers, who nominated him, nor the common people who hated the Mathers. Even the Earl of Bellomont, the "real lord " who succeeded Phips, got on better with the captious people who moulded public opinion in Boston than did this Maine carpenter.

For a time, indeed, it looked as if Bellomont were going to get on very well indeed. A vigorous man of sixty-three, fine looking, with

elegant manners and courtly ways, he had little difficulty, at first, in making friends with even the least friendly of the Bostonians. Churchman though he was, he was not averse to attendance at the Thursday lecture and this, of course, made upon the stiff-necked Puritans just the impression he had calculated that it would.

The Assembly hired of Peter Sergeant for him the Province House afterwards renowned as the official home of the governors, and here he entertained handsomely. By a curious coincidence his lady thus succeeded as mistress of the handsome mansion Lady Phips, whom Peter Sergeant had married for his third wife. The builder, owner and first occupant of what is perhaps the most interesting house in colonial history was a rich London merchant who came to reside here in 1667 and died here February 8, 1714. Sergeant had held many offices under the old charter government, was one of the witchcraft judges and, when Andros had been deposed, played an important part in that proceeding. That he was a very rich man one must conclude from the extreme elegance of the homestead which he erected, nearly opposite the Old South Church, on a lot three hundred feet deep with a frontage of nearly

a hundred feet on what was then called High street but which we now know as Washington street.

The house was square and of brick. It had three stories, with a gambrel roof and lofty cupola, the last-named adornment surmounted with the gilt-bronzed figure of an Indian with a drawn bow and arrow. Over the portico of the main entrance was an elaborate iron balustrade bearing the initials of the owner and the date" 16 P. S. 79." Large trees graced the court-yard, which was surrounded by an elegant fence set off by ornamented posts. paved driveway led up to the massive steps of the palatial doorway. Two small out-buildings, which, in the official days served as porters' lodges, signified to passers-by that this house was indeed the dwelling-place of one who represented the majesty of England.

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Hawthorne in his "Legends of the Province House" has repeopled for us this impressive old mansion and, at the risk of anticipating somewhat the arrival of governors not yet on the scene, I shall quote his description while suppressing, as far as possible, his allusions to the deplorable condition of the house at the time he himself visited it: "A wide door with double leaves led into the hall or entry on the