charter to Winthrop and the possession of the Dutch and the rights of ten thousand inhabitants-with the country from Connecticut river to Delaware bay. In 1667, Acadia, with indefinite boundaries, was restored to the French. In 1669, the frozen zone was invaded, and Prince Rupert and his associates were endowed with a monopoly of the regions on Hudson's bay. In 1677, the proprietary rights to New Hampshire and Maine were revived, in the intent to purchase them for the duke of Monmouth. In 1679, after Philip's war in New England, Mount Hope was hardly rescued from a courtier, then famous as the author of two indifferent comedies. The charter which secured a large and fertile province to William Penn, and thus invested philanthropy with executive power on the western bank of the Delaware, was a grant from Charles II. From the outer cape of Nova Scotia to Florida, with few exceptions, the tenure of every territory was changed. Further, the trade with Africa, the link in the chain of universal commerce, that first joined Europe, Asia, and America together, and united the Caucasian, the Malay, and the Ethiopian races, was given away to a company, which alone had the right of planting on the African coast.

During the first four years of his reign, Charles II. gave away a large part of a continent. Could he have continued as lavish, in the course of his rule he would have given away the world.

CHAPTER IV.

MASSACHUSETTS AND CHARLES II.

THE virtual independence which had been hitherto exercised by MASSACHUSETTS was too dear to be relinquished. The news of the restoration, brought to Boston in July, 1660, by the ships in which Goffe and Whalley, two of the regicide judges, were passengers, was received with skeptical anxiety, and no notice was taken of the event. At the session of the general court, in October, a motion for an address to the king did not succeed; affairs in England were still regarded as unsettled. In November, it became certain that the hereditary family of kings had recovered the throne, and that swarms of enemies to the colony had gathered round the new government; a general court was convened, and addresses were prepared for the parliament and the monarch. By advice of the great majority of elders, no judgment was expressed on the execution of Charles I. and "the grievous confusions" of the past. The colonists appealed to the king of England, as "a king who had seen adversity, and who, having himself been an exile, knew the hearts of exiles." They prayed for "the continuance of civil and religious liberties," and against complaints requested an opportunity of defence. "Let not the king hear men's words," such was their petition; "your servants are true men, fearing God and the king. We could not live without the public worship of God; that we might enjoy divine worship without human mixtures, we, not without tears, departed from our country, kindred, and fathers' houses. Our garments are become old by reason. of the very long journey; ourselves, who came away in our strength, are, many of us, become gray-headed, and some of

us stooping for age." In return for the protection of their liberties, they promise the blessing of a people whose trust is in God.

Leverett, the patriotic and able agent of the colony, was instructed to intercede with members of parliament and the privy council for its chartered liberties; to resist appeals to England, alike in cases civil or criminal. Some hope was entertained that the new government might confirm to New England commerce the favors which the Long Parliament had conceded. But Massachusetts never gained an exemption from the severity of the navigation acts till she ceased to demand it as a favor.

At this juncture, Eliot, the apostle of the red men, the same who had claimed for the people a voice even in making treaties, published an essay " on the Christian commonwealth," showing how it must be constituted through the willing selforganization of individuals into tens, then hundreds, then thousands, till at last the whole would form itself into one strictly popular government. His treatise was condemned as too full of the seditious doctrines of democratic liberty. Upon this the single-minded author did not hesitate to suppress it, and in guarded language to acknowledge the form of government by king, lords, and commons, as not only lawful, but eminent.

A letter from the king, expressing general good-will, could not quiet the apprehensions of the colonists. The committee for the plantations already, in April, 1661, surmised that Massachusetts would, if it dared, cast off its allegiance, and resort to an alliance with Spain, or to any desperate remedy, rather than admit of appeals to England. Upon this subject a controversy immediately arose; and the royal government resolved to establish the principle which the Long Parliament had waived.

It was therefore not without reason that the colony foreboded collision with the crown; and, after a full report from a numerous committee, of which Bradstreet, Hawthorne, Mather, and Norton were members, the general court, on the tenth of June, 1661, published a declaration of natural and chartered rights. In this paper, which was probably written

by Thomas Danforth, they declare their liberties under God and their patent to be: to choose their own governor, deputy governor, and representatives; to admit freemen on terms to be prescribed at their own pleasure; to set up all sorts of officers, superior and inferior, and point out their power and places; to exercise, by their annually elected magistrates and deputies, all power and authority, legislative, executive, and judicial, without appeal, so long as the laws were not repugnant to the laws of England; to defend themselves by force of arms against every aggression; and to reject, as an infringement of their right, any parliamentary or royal imposition prejudicial to the country, and contrary to any just act of colonial legislation." The duties of allegiance were narrowed to a few points, which conceded neither revenue nor substantial power.

When the Puritan commonwealth had thus joined issue with its sovereign by denying the right of appeal from its courts, and with the English parliament by declaring the navigation act an infringement of its chartered rights, on the seventh of August, more than a year after the restoration, Charles II. was proclaimed at Boston, amid the cold observation of a few formalities. Yet the "gratulatory and lowly script," sent him on the same day, interpreted his letter as an answer of peace from "the best of kings." "Royal sir," it continued, excusing the tardiness of the colony with unseemly adulation, "your just title to the crown enthronizeth you in our consciences; your graciousness in our affections; that inspireth unto dutie, this naturalizeth unto loyaltie; thence wee call you lord, hence a saviour. Mephibosheth, how prejudicially soever misrepresented, yet rejoiceth that the king is come in peace to his owne house. Nowe the Lord hath dealt well with our lord the king, may New England, under your royal protection, bee permitted still to sing the Lord's song in this strange land."

The young republic had continued the exercise of its government as of right; complaints against her had multiplied; and her own interests, coinciding with the express orders of the monarch, induced her to send envoys to London. The country was divided in opinion; the large majority insisted on

sustaining its established system in undiminished force; others were willing to make such concessions as would satisfy the ministry of Clarendon. The former party prevailed; and John Norton, an accomplished scholar and rigid Puritan, yet a friend to moderate counsels, was joined with the worthy but not very able Simon Bradstreet in the commission to England. In January, 1662, they were instructed to persuade the king of the loyalty of the colony of Massachusetts, yet to “engage to nothing prejudicial to their present standing according to their patent, and to endeavor the establishment of the rights and privileges then enjoyed." Letters were at the same time transmitted to the English statesmen on whose friendship it was safe to rely.

King Charles received the messengers with courtesy; and they returned in the fall with the royal answer, which probably originated with Clarendon. The charter was confirmed, and an amnesty of all offences during the late troubles was conditionally promised. But the king directed a repeal of all laws derogatory to his authority; the taking of the oath of allegiance; the administration of justice in his name; a concession of the elective franchise to all freeholders of competent estates; and, as "the principle of the charter was the freedom of the liberty of conscience," the allowance of that freedom to those who desired to use "the booke of common prayer, and perform their devotion in the manner established in England."

Henceforward legal proceedings were transacted in the king's name; and, after a delay of two years, the elective franchise was extended to all freeholders who paid an annual tax of ten shillings, provided the general court, on certificates to their orthodoxy and good life, should admit them as freemen. But the people of Massachusetts regarded not so much the nature of the requisitions as the power by which they were made. Complete acquiescence would have seemed to recognise in the monarch the right of reversing the judgments of their courts; of dictating laws for their enactment; and of changing by his own authority the character of their domestic constitution. The question of obedience was a question of liberty, and gave birth to the parties of prerogative and of freedom.