recognition of his services there that he was elected to the Court of Assistants (the upper house of the Massachusetts legislature), to which he was returned every year, with the exception of 1684, until the charter of the Company was revoked.

Meanwhile his position was strengthened by the marriage of his sisters. One, Anne, much his senior, had married Simon Bradstreet, the leader of the moderate party and the last governor of the Company under the first charter. Another had married Major-General Denison, who consistently supported his brother-in-law and was known as a prerogative man. Dudley himself married the daughter of Edward Tyng, who was an Assistant for over twelve years and later sat in the Council of his son-in-law. Thus, through inherited prestige and connections by marriage, Dudley exercised considerable influence. The position of Assistant was peculiarly suited to show his abilities as an administrator, and he was frequently put upon committees.2 In 1676 he was one of the committee appointed to draw up an answer to the king's letter; from 1677 to 1681 he served as one of the commissioners for the United Colonies; in 1679 he was on committees appointed to revise the laws and to determine the boundaries between the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and New Plymouth. He was also frequently chosen to treat with the Indians, in dealing with whom he showed such skill and gained such insight and knowledge of their habits that his reputation as an Indian negotiator, though recognized in England, was regarded with suspicion by the colonists.

The conditions in Massachusetts and Boston were changing. The purposes of the original planters had hitherto been the ideals of the governors and the people. The aims 1 Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 77. 2 Ibid. 100, 237, 244, 270, 315, 329, etc.

of the clergy and the magistrates, generally working in harmony, had prevailed, and had governed the morals and the political policy of the colony; and the stern idealism of Winthrop or Endicott had overborne the opposition of any who were inclined to substitute their own political or material interests for the ideals of the founders. But now, on the one hand, England was coming into closer touch with the colony, attempting to enforce her rule, and at the same time offering material advantages to men who were willing to accept this control. On the other hand, Massachusetts was no longer completely dominated by the old clerical party. The population was increasing more from natural causes than by the immigration of those bitterly opposed to England, and many men of the second generation who had not experienced persecution in England were willing to assent to some closer relations with the mother country. The colony, moreover, was prospering and increasing in wealth; trade was becoming more important, and was not only adding more resources to the community, but was arousing new ideas and influences; and as the stake of the colonists was larger they grew more cautious and less ready to risk their increasing prosperity in open conflict. In addition, there was a dissatisfied element in Massachusetts which had suffered at the hands of the colonial government. Many of this class had attempted to gain redress from England; but hitherto England had been able to give them little effective aid. From 1660, however, the government of the Restoration was willing to listen to these complaints and ready to give active help in enforcing its judgments, thus strengthening the hands of the party which was opposed to the old independent gov

ernment.

Although these conditions might be found in Boston, the

country towns were less influenced by increasing wealth and new ideas. In them the old simplicity of life and austerity of thought and manners still remained, and the old spirit and ideals of the founders of the Puritan commonwealth were kept alive by the almost unchallenged influence of the clergy. Thus a conflict was inevitable, and the field of the struggle was the General Court. Although there were no legal distinctions in the qualifications for membership in the two branches that together formed this body, yet the freemen naturally chose as Assistants the more experienced, the better educated, or those best fitted to act in an administrative capacity. For the representatives they selected men whom they knew, inhabitants of the towns they represented, who were acquainted with and reflected the opinions of their constituents. Thus it happened that in the Court of Assistants there were many men of wealth and position amenable to new ideas and influences, while in the House of Representatives the country party, which reflected the old ideas, was most numerous. This distinction between the houses is the key to many of the political divisions of the period, to the hesitancy that was displayed during the last years of the charter government, and to many of the conflicts during the administration of Dudley.

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The restoration of the Stuarts marks a change in the method in which England exercised control over her American colonies. Before the great civil war, both James I and Charles I had appointed committees of the Privy Council to regulate the colonial trade. With the rise and supremacy of Parliament during the war this control was assumed by Parliament, and a commission was appointed headed by Robert, Earl of Warwick, as governor-in-chief of all the colonies. In 1655 a

1 For an exhaustive treatment of this subject, see Andrews, British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1622-1675.

larger board was established, consisting of councillors, judges, officials, and merchants, which busied itself chiefly with the regulation of colonial commerce. With the restoration in 1660 the crown and Privy Council once more assumed control of the colonial policy. This control was first directed by two advisory bodies, -one a committee of the Privy Council for Foreign Plantations,1 the other an advisory council for trade, composed of prominent men and some of the members of the Privy Council.2 In 1674, however, this system of dual boards was abandoned, and a standing committee of twenty-four members of the Privy Council was appointed, which was known as the Lords of Trade. This body was continued, with various changes in its personnel, until 1696, when William III organized a Board of Trade consisting of the great officers of state and eight commissioners, among whom were William Blathwayt and John Locke, who had been active in colonial affairs in the reign of Charles II; and this board was, in turn, continued by Anne, under whom it became an active and efficient body. It was with the Lords of Trade, just established at his entrance into public life, that Dudley had relations for nearly forty years, a board on which sat some of the ablest men in England, who from experience, observation, and careful study had developed ideas concerning colonial control which they tried to make effective in New England. It is not surprising, nor is it to Dudley's discredit, that he was influenced by these men and their ideas; nor should the fact that their aims differed from the desires of many persons in Massachusetts be sufficient to condemn them and cause Dudley to be regarded as a traitor.

The Stuarts had a threefold policy. Their first object,

1 New York Colonial Documents, iii. 32-34.

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undisguised mercantilism, was to unite England and her colonies in closer commercial relations, to incorporate the trade of the colonies in the commerce of the empire and utilize their resources to increase the prosperity of the mother country. The colonial navigation laws, in which this policy is embodied, had their origin in the commonwealth; but their provisions were reënacted and extended in a series of five acts passed between 1660 and 1696.1 The net result of these acts was to prohibit the direct trade of the colonies with Europe, but at the same time to admit them to a share in the commerce of Great Britain. After the freedom which they had enjoyed, these restrictions seemed burdensome; for the colonists were by no means ready to abandon the lucrative trade that had grown up with France, Spain, and the Canaries. A second object of the policy of England was to "regulate" the colonial governments, or, in other words, to make their laws and procedure like those of England. The result of this regulation would have been to make the colonies more dependent on England and to increase the influence of the king; but at the same time, such a policy would have put an end to the illegal practices which had grown up in America. The third object was to settle the religious and political disputes that were rife in the colonies, to protect those whom religious opinions had debarred from political rights, and to put an end to the conflicting claims of the various colonies, and particularly to those rights which Massachusetts exercised over Maine and New Hampshire. To accomplish these aims, and also to utilize the military resources of the colonies, the Lords of Trade, after repeated attempts to control the

1 Statutes of the Realm, v. 246–250, 394-395, 449-452, 792-793, vii. 103-107; Channing, “The Navigation Laws," American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, New Series, vi. 160-179.