mission was clear to Dudley and his colleague, and was recognized by many of the leaders at home; but on their return Richards, forgetting his experience in England and his own discouraging reports, sided with the faction in the House of Representatives and urged further resistance to the commands of the king. Dudley was more consistent; he better understood the temper of the Committee, and boldly advised the colony by speedy submission, to make the best terms possible.1 As a result, Richards was regarded as a patriotic man, while the hatred of the people was concentrated on Dudley and he was dropped from the Court of Assistants.

Dudley's hands, however, were not absolutely clean. Although there is not evidence enough to convict him of the avowed intention to betray the charter, yet it is known that he and Randolph discussed the probable form of government after the charter should be overthrown.2 This conversation, to be sure, took place after the issuance of the quo warranto; yet it showed a readiness on Dudley's part to accept a result

qua.

...

ch

. . It is resolved that upon the 7 day of May next being the day of election, there bee a New Go' and new Magistrates declaring Gov Bradstreet, M❜ Stoughton, M' Dudley, M' Bulkley and one more w are Enemies to the Countrey. It is resolved their Ellections to be such as to haue Govn and Magistrates to be Unanimously and its thought they designe to opose any power from the King." - Abstract of a letter from Boston, March 14, 1684, given by Randolph to the Lords of Trade: Board of Trade, Papers, New England (Ms.), 53, No. 51.

1 Toppan, Edward Randolph, iii. 273. See also a letter (signed by Bradstreet, Bulkley, Saltonstall, Russell, Stoughton, Dudley, Browne, and Gidney, March 23, 1684) to Sir Leoline Jenkins, stating that the majority of the magistrates "declared for submission, and would have despatched our agents empowered to make that submission. But we cannot obtain the assent of the deputies." · Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1681-1685,

No. 1603.

2 Randolph to Southwell, August 19, 1683: "I have spent some tyme with Mr. Dudley one of their present Agents Endeavouring to accomodate things for their future settlment. .."-Toppan, Edward Randolph, iii. 262.

hateful to those who had intrusted him with their interests. From this time on, at any rate, Dudley and Randolph worked in harmony, Randolph pushing on the suit in England, Dudley advising submission at home, and at the same time seeking to mitigate the severity of the punishment which he felt sure would be inflicted upon the colony. In a long letter to Sir Leoline Jenkins, he says that he has endeavored "to assure this people that his Majestyes Just satisfaction & this peoples good were the same & not a different interest," and that as a result he has lost his office and is regarded as an enemy to the country. This attitude he attributes not to the body of the people, but to certain persons who have influenced them, and begs that "no severities may be used towards them as will spoyle the growth of these plantations & thereby greatly disadvantage his Majestyes revenues & his Majestyes other plantations in the West Indies that have great dependence upon this place, & his Majestyes commands for their future settlement may be accompanied & Introduced with his Gratious pardon, assurance of his peoples propertyes & Indulgence in Matters of religion, which will greatly oblidge this people in their obedience & advance the good opinion & confidence of his Majestyes undeserved Grace & favor for them." Whether this letter expressed Dudley's sincere desire, or was only a shrewd bid for future favors from England, it is hard to determine; yet it is typical of his later policy, which was obedience and close dependence upon England, coupled with a genuine desire to protect and improve the condition of the colony. Probably at this date, as in his later career, Dudley felt himself to be the man to bring about this harmony and

1 Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1681–1685, No. 1670. The original from which this quotation is made is in the Board of Trade's Papers, New England (Ms.), 53, No. 92.

prosperity, and in order to gain his ends he did not hesitate to use the influence of a man so hated as Randolph. In this aim, he was successful; for Randolph wrote, "I am extreamely solicitous that Mr. Dudley might have the sole Gout of N. Eng."1

The proceedings against the colony in the court of King's Bench were, by advice of Attorney-General Sawyer, transferred to Chancery, where upon a writ of scire facias, to which the colonists did not plead, the charter was declared vacated, October 23, 1684.2 To the disappointment of Randolph,

1 Randolph to Samuel Shrimpton, July 26, 1684, Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 4th Series, viii. 526.

The "Exemplification of the Judgment vacating the Charter" is printed in the Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections, 4th Series, ii. 246. At a later date Randolph wrote, "By the assistance of M' Brent of the Temple, their solicitor, they obtained a report from Sir Thomas Powys . . . in their favour, that their former charter was illegally vacated" (Randolph to the Lords Committee, May 29, 1689, New York Colonial Documents, iii. 578). Professor Joel Parker, in his lecture on "The Charter and Religious Legislation in Massachusetts" (Lowell Institute Lectures on the Early History of Massachusetts, 400), says, "The assumption to enter a decree, that a charter . . . which had existed more than half a century, should 'be vacated, cancelled, and annihilated,' on account of usurpations, which, in case of ordinary corporations, may be a subject for proceedings by writ of quo warranto in the King's Bench, and especially to do this upon a writ issued to the sheriff of Middlesex, in England, under such circumstances that there could be neither service nor notice, would be of itself a usurpation." Charles Deane, in Winsor's Memorial History of Boston, i. 378, quoting the above, comes to a like conclusion. On the other hand, Blackstone (Commentaries on the Laws of England, book iii. 260) says, "Where the patentee hath done an act that amounts to a forfeiture of the grant the remedy to repeal the patent is by a writ of scire facias in Chancery"; and Bouvier (Law Dictionary, ii. 960), citing the same, declares that the crown may by its own prerogative repeal by scire facias its own grant." Brooks Adams (Emancipation of Massachusetts, 213-215), citing a letter from Robert Humphreys, counsel for the colonists, does not question the legality of the proceedings; and Humphreys himself apparently acquiesced when his plea "of the impossibility of hauing a return from you in the time alloted" was overruled by the lord keeper. Whether the charter was justly vacated or not is not the question; the method taken was a proper one to use in vacating a charter, and the decree in Chancery stood and was legally binding until reversed by some higher authority.

however, Colonel Kirke was appointed governor, a choice which Randolph vehemently opposed. He wrote to Sir Robert Southwell and to the Bishop of St. Asaph urging the unfitness of a military man, and of Kirke in particular, and advising that a native of the country be appointed. Randolph at last succeeded in bringing the English authorities to his point of view, and led them to adopt a plan which he had in mind since 1681, when he had sent to Jenkins proposals for the settlement of New England, his plan being to proceed against the Company by a writ of quo warranto, and then to have the king issue a commission for a temporary government, accompanied by a declaration of free pardon, security of property, and freedom of religion.1 Other work was found for Kirke to do; and Randolph, now that the point was gained, was jubilant and took all the glory to himself. To Sir Robert Southwell he wrote, "I have gaind ye point & am carriing over with me a Commission for a Temporary Got: I hope it will succeed & the rather because they have been putt in a terrible fright with the apprehentions of being committed to y° Guardianship of Cott Kerk." The temporary government gave Randolph what he hoped would prove to be a lucrative post, and made Joseph Dudley president of the Council and chief executive not only of Massachusetts, but of a large part of New England as well.

1 Goodrick, Edward Randolph, 89.

August 29, 1685, Toppan, Edward Randolph, iv. 40.

CHAPTER II

THE TEMPORARY POLICY OF THE RESTORATION

JOSEPH DUDLEY, PRESIDENT OF THE MASSACHUSETTS

COUNCIL

May to December, 1686

THE revocation of the Massachusetts charter was but the first step in the accomplishment of the Stuart policy towards New England. It was not an act of tyranny prompted by spite and malice, but a part of a well-defined scheme to minimize the particularistic tendencies of the colonies and to increase their dependence on England. To direct intercolonial affairs, to enforce the laws of England and carry out her commercial policy, to establish the national church while recognizing the peculiarities of colonial dissent, — in short, to treat the colonies as if they were an integral part of the British realm, these were the aims of the Stuart policy. Men of broad experience and communities of wide interests might see little that was hurtful in such designs; but the average man whose outlook was confined to New England regarded them as acts of tyranny. Here and there, it is true, men of larger experience, whose views extended beyond New England, men like Dudley and Stoughton, might welcome the change; but in general the people, under the lead of men like Nowell and Danforth, could see only the loss of the ideals of the former generation. And the present generation differed from the founders of Massachusetts. When the charter was