cil, after the arraignment of Wise and the selectmen; "you have no privilege left you but not to be sold as slaves." "Do you believe," demanded Andros, "Joe and Tom may tell the king what money he may have?" The writ of habeas corpus was withheld. The prisoners pleaded Magna Charta. "Do not think," replied one of the judges, "the laws of England follow you to the ends of the earth." And in his charge to the packed jury Dudley spoke plainly: "Worthy gentlemen, we expect a good verdict from you." The verdict followed; and after imprisonment came heavy fines and partial disfranchisements.

Oppression threatened the country with ruin; and the oppressors, quoting an opinion current among the mercantile monopolists of England, answered without disguise: "It is not for his majesty's interest you should thrive."

The taxes, in amount not grievous, were for public purposes. But the lean wolves of tyranny were themselves hungry for spoils. It was the intention of King James that "their several properties, according to their ancient records," should be granted them; the fee for the grants was the excuse for extortion. "All the inhabitants," wrote Randolph, “must take new grants of their lands, which will bring in vast profits." Indeed, there was not money enough in the country to have paid the exorbitant fees which were demanded.

The colonists pleaded their charter; but grants under the charter were declared void by its forfeiture. Lynde, of Charlestown, produced an Indian deed. It was pronounced "worth no more than the scratch of a bear's paw." Lands were held not by a feudal tenure, but under grants from the general court to towns, and from towns to individuals. The town of Lynn produced its records; they were slighted "as not worth a rush." Others pleaded possession and use of the land. "You take possession," it was answered, "for the king." "The men of Massachusetts did much quote Lord Coke;" but, defeated in argument by Andros, who was a good lawyer, John Higginson, minister of Salem, went back from the common law of England to the book of Genesis, and, recalling that God gave the earth to the sons of Adam to be subdued and replenished, declared that the people of New England

held their lands "by the grand charter from God." At this, Andros, incensed, bade him approve himself "a subject or a rebel." The lands reserved for the poor, generally all common lands, were appropriated by favorites; writs of intrusion were multiplied; and fees, amounting, in some cases, to one fourth the value of an estate, were exacted for granting a patent to its owner. A selected jury offered no relief. "Our condition," said Danforth, "is little inferior to absolute slavery;" and the people of Lynn afterward gave thanks to God for their escape from the worst of bondage. "The governor invaded liberty and property after such a manner," said the temperate Increase Mather, "as no man could say anything was his own."

By the additional powers and instructions of June, 1686, Andros was authorized to demand the Rhode Island charter, and to receive that of Connecticut, if tendered to him. Against the charter of Rhode Island a writ of quo warranto had been issued. The judgment against Massachusetts left no hope of protection from courts submissive to the royal will; and the towns resolved not "to stand suit," but to appeal to the conscience of the king for the "privileges and liberties granted by Charles II., of blessed memory." Soon after the arrival of Andros he had demanded the surrender of the charter. Walter Clarke, the governor, insisted on waiting for "a fitter season." Repairing to Rhode Island, Andros, in January, 1687, dissolved its government and broke its seal; five of its citizens were appointed members of his council, and a commission, irresponsible to the people, was substituted for the suspended system of freedom. That these magistrates levied moderate taxes, payable in wool or other produce, is evident from the records. It was pretended that the people of Rhode Island were satisfied, and did not so much as petition for their charter again.

In the autumn of the same year Andros, attended by some of his council and by an armed guard, set forth to assume the government of Connecticut. Dongan had in vain solicited the people of Connecticut to submit to his jurisdiction; but least of all were they willing to hazard the continuance of liberty on the decision of the dependent English

courts. On the third writ of quo warranto, the colony, in a petition to the king, asserted its chartered rights, yet desired, in any event, rather to share the fortunes of Massachusetts than to be annexed to New York. Andros found the assembly in session, and, on the thirty-first of October, demanded the surrender of its charter. The brave governor Treat pleaded earnestly for the cherished patent, which had been purchased by sacrifices and martyrdoms, and was endeared by halcyon days. The shades of evening descended during the prolonged discussion; an anxious crowd had gathered to witness the debate. Tradition loves to relate that the charter lay on the table; that of a sudden the lights were extinguished, and, when they were rekindled, the charter had disappeared. It is certain that "in this very troublesome season, when the constitution of Connecticut was struck at, Captain Joseph Wadsworth, of Hartford, rendered fruitful and good service in securing the duplicate charter of the colony, and safely keeping and preserving the same" for nearly eight-andtwenty years. Meantime, Andros assumed the government, selected councillors, and, demanding the records of Connecticut, to the annals of its freedom set the word FINIS. One of his few laws prohibited town-meetings except for the election of officers. The colonists submitted; yet their consciences were afterward "troubled at their hasty surrender."

While Connecticut lost its liberties, the eastern frontier was depopulated. An expedition, in 1688, against the French establishments, which have left a name to Castine, roused the passions of the neighboring Indians; and Andros made a vain pursuit of a retreating enemy, who had for their allies the forests and the inclement winter.

In July, 1688, the seaboard from Maryland to the St. Croix was united in one dominion, with Boston for its capital, and was abandoned to Andros, as governor-general, to Randolph, as secretary, with their needy associates. But the impoverished country disappointed their avarice. The eastern part of Maine had been pillaged by agents, who, as Randolph himself wrote, had been "as arbitrary as the Grand Turk ;" and in New York there was "little good to be done," for its people "had been squeezed dry by Dongan." But, on the arrival of the

new commission, Andros hastened to the south to assume the government of New York and New Jersey.

In Massachusetts "the wicked walked on every side, and the vilest men were exalted." The men in power as agents of James II. established an arbitrary government; as men in office, they coveted large emoluments.

The schools of learning, formerly so well taken care of, were allowed to go to decay. The religious institutions were impaired by abolishing the methods of their support. "It is pleasant," said the foreign agents of tyranny, "to behold poor coblers and pitiful mechanics, who have neither home nor land, strutting and making noe mean figure at their elections, and some of the richest merchants and wealthiest of the people stand by as insignificant cyphers;" and therefore a townmeeting was allowed only for the choice of town officers. The vote by ballot was rejected. To a committee from Lynn, Andros said plainly: "There is no such thing as a town in the whole country." To assemble in town-meeting for deliberation was an act of sedition or a riot.

The spirit which led forth the colonies of New England kept their liberties alive; in the general gloom, the ministers preached sedition and planned resistance. They put by the annual thanksgiving; and at private fasts besought the Lord to repent himself for his servants, whose power was gone. Moody was confident that God would yet "be exalted among the heathen."

On the Lord's Day, which was to have been the day of thanksgiving for the queen's pregnancy, the church was much grieved at the weakness of Allen, who, from the improved Bay Psalm Book, gave out words of sympathy with the joy of the king. But Willard, while before prayer he read, among many other notices, the occasion of the governor's gratitude, and, after Puritan usage, interceded largely for the king, "otherwise altered not his course one jot," and, as the crisis drew near, goaded the people with the text: "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, warring against sin."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE REVOLUTION OF 1688.

DESPERATE measures were postponed, that one of the ministers might make an appeal to the king; and Increase Mather, escaping the vigilance of Randolph, embarked on the mission for redress. But relief came from a revolution of which the influence pervaded the world.

On the restoration of Charles II., the Puritan or republican element lost all hope of dominion in England; and its history from 1660 to 1688 is but the history of the struggle for a compromise between the republic and absolute monarchy. The contest was continued, yet within limits so narrow as never to endanger the existence, or even question the right, of monarchy itself. The people had attempted a democratic revolution, and had failed; they awaited the movements of the aristocracy.

The ministry of Clarendon in 1660, the first after the restoration, acknowledged the indefeasible sovereignty of the king, and sought in the prelates and nobility natural allies for the royal prerogative. Not destitute of honest nationality, nor wholly regardless of English liberties, it renewed intoler-. ance in religion; and, while it respected a balance of powers, claimed the preponderance in the state for the monarch. Twenty years of indulgence had rendered suppression of dissent more than ever impossible; but, as no general election for parliament was held, a change of ministry could be effected only by a faction within the palace. The royal council sustained Clarendon; the rakes about court, railing at his moroseness, echoed the popular clamor against him. His overthrow, after seven years' service, "was certainly designed in