English law, perhaps the draughtsman of the charter, certainly familiar with it from its beginning, was chosen to succeed Endecott. Meantime, letters of entreaty had been sent to Robert Boyle and the earl of Manchester; for, from the days of Southampton and Sandys, of Warwick and Say, to those of Burke and Chatham, America was not destitute of friends in England. But none of them would perceive the reasonableness of complaining against an abstract principle. "We are all amazed," wrote Clarendon, who was no enemy to Massachusetts; "you demand a revocation of the commission, without charging the commissioners with the least matter of crymes or exorbitances." The statesmen of that day in Massachusetts understood the doctrine of liberty better than the chancellor of England. A century later, and there were none in England who did not esteem the commission an unconstitutional usurpation.

To Connecticut, the controversy with Massachusetts was fraught with benefits. The commissioners, desirous to make friends in the other colonies, gave no countenance to a claim advanced by the duke of Hamilton to a large part of its territory, and, in arranging the limits of New York, though the charter of Clarendon's son-in-law extended to the river Connecticut, they established the boundary, on the main, in conformity with the claims of Connecticut itself. Long Island went to the duke of York. Satisfied with the harmony which they had secured by attempting nothing but for the interests of the colony, they saw fit to praise to the monarch "the dutifulness and obedience of Connecticut," which was "set off with the more lustre by the contrary deportment of Massachusetts."

We shall soon have occasion to narrate the events in which Nicolls was engaged at New York, where he remained. In February, 1665, Carr, Cartwright, and Maverick, the other commissioners, returning to Massachusetts, desired that, at the next general election day, the whole male population might be assembled in Boston, to hear the message from the king. The proposal was rejected. "He that will not attend to the request," said Cartwright, " is a traitor."

The nature of the government of Rhode Island, and its habitual policy of relying on England for protection, secured

to the royal agents in that province a less unfavorable reception. Plymouth, the weakest colony of all, too poor to “maintain scholars to their ministers," but in some places making use of "a guifted brother," stood firm for independence, although the long-cherished hopes of the inhabitants were flattered by the promise of a charter, if they would but allow the king to select their governor from among three candidates, whom they themselves should nominate. The general assembly, after due consideration, "with many thanks, and great protestations of loyalty to the king," "chose to be as they were."

In Massachusetts, the conference between the two parties degenerated into an altercation. "It is insufferable," said its government, "that the colony should be brought to the bar of a tribunal unknown to its charter." In May, the royal commissioners asked categorically: "Do you acknowledge his majesty's commission?" The colony declined giving a direct answer, and chose rather to plead his majesty's patent.

Tired of discussion, the commissioners declared their intention of holding a court to decide a cause in which the colony was cited to appear as defendant. The general court of the colony forbade them to proceed. On the twenty-third of May, the morning fixed for the trial, they were preparing to go on with the cause, when a herald stepped forth, and, having sounded a trumpet, made proclamation in the name of the king and by authority of the charter, that the general court of Massachusetts, in observance of their duty to God, to the king, and to their constituents, could not suffer any to abet his majesty's honorable commissioners in their designs.

The herald sounded the trumpet in three several places, repeating his proclamation. We may smile at this ceremony; yet when had the voice of a herald proclaimed the approach of so momentous a contest? It was the dawning strife of the new system against the old system, of American politics against European politics.

The commissioners could only wonder that the arguments of the king, his chancellor, and his secretary, did not convince the government of Massachusetts. "Since you will misconstrue our endeavors," said they, "we shall not lose more of

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our labors upon you;" and so they retreated to the north. There they endeavored to inquire into the bounds of New Hampshire and Maine, and to prepare for the restoration of proprietary claims; but Massachusetts was again equally active and fearless; its governor and council forbade the towns on the Piscataqua to meet, or in anything to obey the commission, at their utmost peril.

On the first of August, the general court of Massachusetts, as petitioners, thus addressed their complaints to the king: "Your poor subjects are threatened with ruin, reproached with the name of rebels, and your government, established by charter, and our privileges, are violated and undermined; some of your faithful subjects dispossessed of their lands and goods without hearing them speak in their cases; the unity of the English colonies, which is the wall and bulwark under God against the heathen, discountenanced, reproached, and undermined; our bounds and limits clipped and shortened. A just dependence upon and allegiance unto your majesty, according to the charter, we have, and do profess and practice, and have by our oaths of allegiance to your majesty confirmed; but to be placed upon the sandy foundations of a blind obedience unto that arbitrary, absolute, and unlimited power which these gentlemen would impose upon us, who in their actings have carried it not as indifferent persons toward us, this as it is contrary to your majesty's gracious expressions and the liberties of Englishmen, so we can see no reason to submit thereto."

In Maine, the temper of the people was more favorable to royalty; they preferred the immediate protection of the king to an incorporation with Massachusetts, or a subjection to the heir of Gorges; and the commissioners, setting aside the officers appointed by Massachusetts and neglecting the pretensions of Gorges, issued commissions to persons of their selection to govern the district. There were not wanting those who, in spite of threats, openly expressed fears of "the sad contentions" that would follow, and acknowledged that their connection with Massachusetts had been favorable to their prosperity. In the country beyond the Kennebec, which had been recently granted to the duke of York as a province, the commissioners

instituted a government in his name over the few and scattered inhabitants; and, when they were recalled, they retired in angry petulance, threatening the disloyal in New England with retribution and the gallows.

The frowardness of Massachusetts was visited by reproofs from the English monarch, to whom it was well known that "the people of that colony affirmed his majesty had no jurisdiction over them." It was resolved to transfer the scene of negotiations. By a royal mandate of April, 1666, Bellingham and Hawthorne were commanded, on their allegiance, to repair to England, with two or three others, whom the magistrates of Massachusetts were to appoint as their colleagues. Till the final decision of the claims of Gorges, the government of Maine was to continue as instituted by the commissioners.

It belonged to the general court to execute such commands as exceeded the powers of the magistrates; it was therefore convened to consider the letter from the king. The morning of the second day was spent in prayer; six elders prayed. The next day, after a lecture, some debate was had; and petitions, proposing compliance with the king, were forwarded from Boston, Salem, Ipswich, and Newbury. "Let some regular way be propounded for the debate," said Bellingham, the governor. "The king's prerogative gives him power to command our appearance," said the moderate Bradstreet; "before God and men we are to obey." "You may have a trial at law," insinuated an artful royalist; "when you come to England, you may insist upon it and claim it." "We must as well consider God's displeasure as the king's," retorted Willoughby; "the interest of ourselves and of God's things, as his majesty's prerogative; for our liberties are of concernment, and to be regarded as to the preservation; for if the king may send for me now, and another to-morrow, we are a miserable people." "Prerogative is as necessary as law," rejoined the royalist. "Prerogative is not above law," retorted Hawthorne. After much argument, obedience was refused. "We have already," such was the reply of the general court, "furnished our views in writing, so that the ablest persons among us could not declare our case more fully." This decision of disobedience was made at a time when

Louis XIV. of France, eager to grasp at the Spanish Netherlands, and united with De Witt by a treaty of partition, had, in consequence of his Dutch alliance, declared war against England. It was on this occasion that the conquest of Canada was first distinctly proposed to New England; but "a land march of four hundred miles, over rocky mountains and howling deserts," was too terrible an obstacle. Boston equipped privateers, and not without success.

At the same time, Massachusetts sent provisions to the English fleet in the West Indies; and, to the navy in England, a ship-load of masts; "a blessing, mighty unexpected, and but for which," adds Pepys, "we must have failed the next year.”

Secure in the support of a resolute minority, the Puritan commonwealth, in 1668, entered the province of Maine, and re-established its authority by force of arms. Great tumults ensued; many persons, opposed to what seemed a usurpation, were punished for "irreverent speeches; some even reproached the authorities of Massachusetts "as traitors and rebels against the king;" but, from the southern limit of Massachusetts to the Kennebec, the colonial government maintained its independent jurisdiction till Gorges recovered his claims by adjudication in England.

The defiance of Massachusetts was not followed by immediate danger. Clarendon was in exile. The board of trade, projected in 1668, never assumed the administration of colonial affairs, and had not vitality enough to last more than three or four years; profligate libertines gained the confidence of the king's mistresses, and places in the royal cabinet. While Charles II. was dallying with women and robbing the theatre of actresses; while Buckingham, who had succeeded in displacing Clarendon, wasted the vigor of his mind and body by indulging in every sensual pleasure "which nature could desire or wit invent;" while Louis XIV. was bribing the mistress of the chief of the king's cabal-England remained without a good government, and the colonies flourished in purity and peace. The affairs of New England were often discussed; but the privy council was overawed by the moral dignity which they could not comprehend. There were great debates, in which the king took part," in what style to write to New Eng