The eastern hostilities with the Indians had a different origin, and were of longer continuance. The news of the rising of the Pokanokets was, indeed, the signal for the commencement of devastations, and, within a few weeks, a border warfare extended over nearly three hundred miles. Sailors had committed outrages, and the Indians avenged the crimes of a corrupt ship's crew on the villages. There was no general rising of the Abenakis, as the eastern tribes were called, no gatherings of large bodies of men. Of the English settlements, nearly one half were destroyed in detail; the inhabitants were either driven away, killed, or carried into captivity; for the hope of a ransom sometimes counselled mercy.

The escape of Anne Brackett, granddaughter of George Cleeves, the first settler of Portland, was the marvel of that day. In August her family were taken captive at the sack of Falmouth. When her captors hastened forward to further ravages on the Kennebec, she was able to loiter behind; with needle and thread from a deserted house, she repaired the wreck of a birchen bark; then, with her husband, a negro servant, and her infant child, she trusted herself to the sea in the patched canoe, which had neither sail nor mast and was like a feather on the waves. She crossed Casco bay, and, arriving at Black Point, where she feared to encounter savages, and at best could only have hoped to find a solitude, how great was her joy as she discovered a vessel from Piscataqua, that had just sought anchorage in the harbor!

The surrender of Acadia to the French had rendered the struggle more arduous, for the eastern Indians obtained arms from the French on the Penobscot. A few of the Mohawks took up the hatchet; but distance rendered co-operation impossible. After several fruitless attempts at treaties, on the twelfth of April, 1678, peace was finally established by Edmund Andros, as governor of the duke of York's province beyond the Kennebec. The red men promised the release of prisoners and the security of English towns; in return, the English were to pay annually, as a quit-rent, a peck of corn for every English family.

CHAPTER VI.

THE OVERTHROW OF THE CHARTER OF MASSACHUSETTS.

To protect the Catholic religion and establish the absolute power of the crown were the constant desires of Charles II. The movements against the liberties of the colonies were marked by the same occasional hesitation and the same underlying persistency as those against the rights of English corporations and the English parliament. For fifteen or sixteen years after the restoration, there was no officer of the customs in Massachusetts, except the governor, annually elected by the people; and he had never taken the oath which the navigation act of 1660 required. During the disastrous Indian war, New England, jealous of independence, never applied to the parent country for assistance. "You are poor," said the earl of Anglesey, "and yet proud." The English ministry, contributing nothing to repair colonial losses, made no secret of its intention to "reassume the government of Massachusetts," and while the ground was still wet with the blood of her yeomanry, the ruins of her villages were still smoking, and the Indian war-cry was yet ringing in the forests of Maine, the committee of the privy council for plantations "did agree that this was the conjuncture to do something effectual for the better regulation of that government, or else all hopes of it might be hereafter lost." The choice of its agent fell upon Edward Randolph, who at the same time. was intrusted by Robert Mason with the care of his claims to New Hampshire; so that he menaced at once the extent, the trade, and the charter of Massachusetts.

Arriving in June, 1676, the emissary immediately demanded of Leverett the governor, that the letter which he

bore from the king should with convenient speed be read to the magistrates. The governor professed ignorance of the officer whose signature as secretary of state was affixed to the letter, and denied the right of the king or of parliament to bind the colony by laws adverse to its interests. To complaints of the neglect of the act of navigation, 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 in the wilderness at our own charge, without any contribution from the crown."

Randolph, who was received only as the agent for Mason, belonged to that class of hungry adventurers with whom America became familiar. Returning to England, after a residence of but six weeks in the New World, he exaggerated the population of the country fourfold, and its wealth in a still greater proportion. On his false reports, the English ministry grew more zealous to employ him; and, in the course of nine years, he made eight voyages to America.

The colony, reluctantly yielding to the direct commands of Charles II., despatched William Stoughton and Peter Bulkeley as its envoys to England; but, agreeably to the advice of the elders, circumscribed their powers "with the utmost care and caution." The oath of fidelity to the local government was revived throughout the jurisdiction.

In a memorial respecting the extent of their territory, the general court represented their peculiar unhappiness, to be required, at one and the same time, to maintain before courts of law a title to the provinces, and to dispute with a savage foe the possession of dismal deserts. Remonstrance was of no avail. In 1677, a committee of the privy council, which examined all the charters, denied to Massachusetts the right of jurisdiction over Maine and New Hampshire. The decision was so manifestly in conformity with English law that the colonial agents attempted no serious resistance.

These provinces being thus severed from the government of Massachusetts, King Charles was willing to secure them as an appanage for his reputed son, the kind-hearted, worthless duke of Monmouth, the Absalom of that day, whose frivolous ambition involved him in a dishonest opposition to his father,

and at last conducted him to the scaffold. It was thought that the united provinces might form a noble principality, with an immediate and increasing revenue. But in May, 1677, before the monarch, whom extravagance had impoverished, could resolve on a negotiation, Massachusetts, through a Boston merchant, purchased the claims of Gorges for twelve hundred and fifty pounds.

In a pecuniary point of view, the transaction was for Massachusetts most injurious; for it threw upon her the defence of a wide and most exposed frontier. But she did not, at this time, come into possession of the whole territory which now forms the state of Maine. France, under the treaty of Breda, occupied the district from the St. Croix to the Penobscot, and claimed the Kennebec as the line of separation between its rightful possessions and those of England; the duke of York held the tract between the Penobscot and the Kennebec, pretending, indeed, to own all that lies between the Kennebec and the St. Croix; while Massachusetts, as the successor to Gorges, was proprietary only of the district between the Kennebec and the Piscataqua.

A novel form of political institution ensued. Massachusetts, in its corporate capacity, was become the lord proprietary of Maine. The district had thus far been represented in the Massachusetts house of representatives; in obedience to an ordinance of the general court, the governor and assistants, in 1680, organized its government as a province, according to the charter to Gorges; the president and council were appointed by the magistrates of Massachusetts; at the same time, a popular legislative branch was established, composed of deputies from the several towns in the district. Danforth, who was selected to be the first president, was a man of superior worth; yet the pride of the province was offended by its subordination; the old religious differences had not lost their influence; and royalists and churchmen prayed for the interposition of the king. Massachusetts was compelled to employ force to assert its sovereignty, which, nevertheless, was exercised with moderation and justice.

On the first apprehension that the claim of Mason would be revived, the people of New Hampshire, in their town-.

meetings, expressed their content with the government of Massachusetts. But the popular wish availed little in the decision of a question of law; the patent of Mason was found on investigation to confer no jurisdiction; the unappropriated lands were allowed to belong to him; but the rights of the settlers to the soil which they actually occupied were reserved for litigation in colonial courts. In July, 1679, New Hampshire was separated from Massachusetts, and organized as a royal province. It was the earliest royal government in New England. The king, reserving a negative voice to himself and his officers, engaged to continue the privilege of an assembly, unless he or his heirs should deem that privilege "an inconvenience." The persons he first named to the offices of president and council were residents of the colony, and friends to the colonists; but, perceiving that their appointment had no other object than to render the transition to a new form of government less intolerable, they accepted office reluctantly.

At length a general assembly was convened at Portsmouth, and it was thus that New Hampshire, in March, 1680, addressed its more powerful neighbor: "We thankfully acknowledge your kindness while we dwelt under your shadow, owning ourselves deeply obliged that, on our earnest request, you took us under your government, and ruled us well. If there be opportunity for us to be any wise serviceable to you, we shall show how ready we are to embrace it. Wishing the presence of God to be with you, we crave the benefit of your prayers on us, who are separated from our brethren."

The colony then proceeded to assert its rights by a solemn decree, the first in its new code: "No act, imposition, law, or ordinance shall be valid, unless made by the assembly and approved by the people." New Hampshire seized the earliest moment of its separate existence to take its place by the side of Massachusetts and Virginia. But its code was disapproved in England both for style and matter; and its provisions were rejected as incongruous and absurd.

Nor was Mason successful in establishing his claims to the soil. The colonial government protected the colonists, and restrained his exactions. Hastening to England to solicit a change, he was allowed to make such arrangements as would