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

promote his own interests. Himself a party in suits to be commenced, he was authorized to select the person to be appointed governor. He found a fit agent in Edward Cranfield, a man who had no object in banishing himself to America but to wrest a fortune from the sawyers and lumber-dealers of New Hampshire. By a deed enrolled in chancery, Mason, in January, 1682, surrendered one fifth part of all quit-rents to the king for the support of the governor, and gave a mortgage of the province for twenty-one years, as collateral security for the payment of his salary. Obtaining further the exclusive right to the anticipated harvest of fines and forfeitures, Cranfield relinquished a profitable employment in England, and embarked for the banks of the Piscataqua.

But the assembly which he convened, in November, 1682, dispelled his golden visions. The "rugged " legislators voted him a gratuity of two hundred and fifty pounds; but they would not yield their liberties; and in their session of January, 1683, he dissolved them. The dissolution of an assembly was, in New England, till then unheard of; a crowd of rash men raised the cry for "liberty and reformation." The leader, Edward Gove, an unlettered enthusiast, was confined in irons, condemned to death for treason, and, having been transported to England, was kept a prisoner in the Tower of London till 1686. Lawsuits about land were multiplied. Packed juries and partial judges settled questions rapidly; but Mason could neither get possession of the estates nor find a purchaser.

Repairing to Boston, in February, 1683, Cranfield wrote to the British ministry that should the duke of York survive Charles II., Massachusetts, buoyed up by the non-conformist party in England, would at once fall from their allegiance to the crown. He therefore advised for that country "a thorough regulation," and enforced the necessity of sending a frigate to Boston harbor till the government should pass "into the hands of loyal and honest gentlemen, and the faction be made incapable ever after of altering or disturbing that government."

In 1683, Cranfield, with a subservient council, began to exercise powers of legislation. When the towns privately sent an agent to England, Vaughan, who had been active in obtaining depositions for his use, was required to find securities

for good behavior. He refused, declaring that he had broken no law; and the governor immediately imprisoned him.

Cranfield, in his longing for money, stooped to falsehood, and, in January, 1684, hastily calling an assembly, on a vague rumor of an invasion, laid before them a bill granting a sudden supply. The representatives, after debate, negatived the bill.

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To intimidate the clergy, he forbade the usual exercise of church discipline. In Portsmouth, Moody, the minister, replied to his threats by a sermon, and the church was inflexible. Cranfield, asserting that the ecclesiastical laws of England were in force in the colony, ordered the people to keep Christmas as a festival, and to fast on the thirtieth of January. But his capital stroke of policy was an order that all persons should be admitted to the Lord's Supper as freely as in the Episcopal or Lutheran church, and that the English liturgy should in certain cases be adopted. The order was disregarded. The gov ernor himself appointed a day, on which he claimed to receive the elements at the hands of Moody, after the forms of the English church. Moody refused; was prosecuted, condemned, and imprisoned. Religious worship was almost entirely broken up. But the people did not yield; and Cranfield, vexed at the stubbornness of the clergy, gave information in England that, "while the clergy were allowed to preach, no true allegiance could be found." It had long been evident "there could be no quiet till the factious preachers were turned out of the province."

In 1684, an attempt was made to impose taxes by the vote of the council. That the people might the less reluctantly pay them, a report of a war with the eastern Indians was spread abroad; and Cranfield made a visit to New York, under pretence of concerting measures with the governor of that province. The committee of plantations had been warned that, "without some visible force to keep the people of New Hampshire under, it would be a difficult or impossible thing to execute his majesty's commands or the laws of trade." Associations were formed for mutual support in resisting the collection of illegal taxes. At Exeter, the sheriff was driven off with clubs, and the farmers' wives threatened to scald his officer if he should attempt to attach property in the house.