XVIL danger; thus did Protestant liberty, after a long strug- CHAP gle, achieve its triumph, and put an end forever to absolute power, in England, in the state and over mind. Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari blazed in golden letters on the standard of the rejoicing aristocracy, desiring to give immortality to their privileges. Humanity was present also, and rejoiced at the redemption of English liberties; she reproved the unnatural conduct. of daughters who drove their father into poverty and exile; she sighed for the Roman Catholics who were oppressed, for the dissenters who were but tolerated; and as, on the evening of the long struggle which had been bequeathed by Rogers and Hooper, and had lasted more than a century and a half, she selected a restingplace, it was but to gather strength, with the fixed purpose of renewing her journey on the dawn of morning. The great news of the invasion of England, and the 1689. declaration of the prince of Orange, reached Boston on the fourth day of April, 1639. The messenger was immediately imprisoned; but his message could not be suppressed; and "the preachers had already matured the evil design" of a revolution. For the events that followed were "not a violent passion of the rabble, but a long-contrived piece of wickedness.” Lam beth MSS. 1025. 16. "There is a general buzzing among the people, April great with expectation of their old charter, or they know not what;" such was the ominous message of Andros to Brockholt, with orders that the soldiers should be ready for action. 18. About nine o'clock of the morning of the 18th, just as April George, the commander of the Rose frigate, stepped on shore, Green and the Boston ship-carpenters gathered about him, and made him a prisoner. The town took the 446 XVII. Lam beth MSS. 12 THE REVOLUTION IN NEW ENGLAND. CHAP. alarm. The royalist sheriff endeavored to quiet the multitude; and at once the multitude arrested him. 1689. They next hastened to the major of the regiment, and demanded colors and drums. He resisted; they threatened. The crowd increased; companies form under Nelson, Foster, Waterhouse, their old officers; and already at ten they seize Bullivant, Foxcroft, and Ravenscraft. Boys ran along the streets with clubs; the drums beat the governor, with his creatures, resisted in council, withdrew to the fort to desire a conference with the ministers and two or three more. The conference was declined. All the companies soon rallied at the town-house. Just then, the last governor of the colony, in office when the charter was abrogated, Simon Bradstreet, glorious with the dignity of fourscore years and seven, one of the early emigrants, a magistrate in 1630, whose experience connected the oldest generation with the new, drew near the townhouse, and was received by a great shout from the freemen. The old magistrates were reinstated, as a council of safety; the whole town rose in arms, "with the most unanimous resolution that ever inspired a people;" and a Declaration, read from the balcony, defended the insurrection as a duty to God and the country. "We commit our enterprise," it was added, "to Him who hears the cry of the oppressed, and advise all our neighbors, for whom we have thus ventured ourselves, to joyn with us in prayers and all just actions for the defence of the land." On Charlestown side, a thousand soldiers crowded together; and the multitude would have been larger if needed. The governor, vainly attempting to escape to the frigate, was, with his creatures, compelled to seek protection by submission; through XVII. the streets where he had first displayed his scar- CHAP. let coat and arbitrary commission, he and his fellows were marched to the town-house, and thence to prison. 1689. April 19. On the next day, the country came swarming across the Charlestown and Chelsea ferries, headed by Shepherd, a schoolmaster of Lynn. All the cry was against LamAndros and Randolph. The castle was taken; the frigate was mastered; the fortifications were occupied. beth MSS 1025. How should a new government be instituted? Townmeetings, before news had arrived of the proclamation of William and Mary, were held throughout the colony. Of fifty-four towns, forty certainly, probably more, voted to reassume the old charter. Representatives were chosen; and once more Massachusetts assembled 22. in general court. May April It is but a short ride from Boston to Plymouth. Already, on the twenty-second of April, Nathaniel 22. Clark, the agent of Andros, was in jail; Hinckley resumed the government, and the children of the Pilgrims renewed the constitution which had been unanimously signed in the Mayflower. But not one of the fathers of the old colony remained alive. John Alden, the last survivor of the signers, famed for his frugal habits, and an arm before which forests had bowed, was silent in death. The days of the Pilgrims were over, and a new generation possessed the soil. beth MSS 841. The royalists had pretended that "the Quaker Lamgrandees" of Rhode Island had imbibed nothing of Quakerism but its indifference to forms, and did not even desire a restoration of the charter. On May-day, their May usual election-day, the inhabitants and freemen poured into Newport; and the whole "democracie" published 1. 448 CHAP. to the world their gratitude "to the good providence XVII. of God, which had wonderfully supported their prede1689. cessors and themselves through more than ordinary difficulties and hardships."-"We take it to be our duty"— thus they continue-" to lay hold of our former gracious privileges, in our charter contained." And by a unanimous vote, the officers, whom Andros had displaced, were confirmed. But Walter Clarke wavered. For nine months there was no acknowledged chief magis1690. trate. The assembly, accepting Clarke's disclaimer, 26. elected Almy. Again excuse was made. Did no one dare to assume responsibility? All eyes turned to one of the old Antinomian exiles, the more than octogenarian, Henry Bull; and the fearless Quaker, true to the light within, employed the last glimmerings of life to restore the democratic charter of Rhode Island. Once more its free government is organized: its seal is renewed; the symbol, an anchor; the motto, HOPE. THE REVOLUTION IN CONNECTICUT AND NEW YORK. Feb. Massachusetts rose in arms, and perfected its revolution without concert; "the amazing news did soon fly like lightning;" and the people of Connecticut spurned the government, which Andros had appointed, and which they had always feared it was a sin to obey. The charter, discolored, but not effaced, was taken May 9. from its hiding-place; an assembly was convened; and, in spite of the FINIS of Andros, new chapters were begun in the records of freedom. Suffolk county, on Long Island, rejoined Connecticut. New York also shared the impulse, but with less unanimity. "The Dutch plot" was matured by Jacob Leisler, a man of energy, but passionate and ill-educated, and not possessed of that happy natural sagacity which elicits a rule of action from its own instincts. But the common people among the Dutch, led by Leisler and his son-in-law Milborne, insisted on proclaiming the CHAP. stadtholder king of England. The XVII. In New Jersey there was no insurrection. inhabitants were unwilling to invoke the interference of the proprietaries. There is no reason to doubt, that, in the several towns, officers were chosen, as before, by the inhabitants themselves, to regulate all local affairs; while the provincial government, as established by James II., fell with Andros. We have already seen 1689. that Maryland had also perfected a revolution, in which Protestant intolerance, as well as popular liberty, had acted its part. The passions of the Mohawks, also, are kindled by the certain prospect of an ally; they chant their loudest war-song, and prepare to descend on Montreal. Thus did a popular insurrection, beginning at Boston, extend to the Chesapeake, and to the wilderness. This New England revolution "made a great noise in the world." Its object was Protestant liberty; and William and Mary, the Protestant sovereigns, were proclaimed with rejoicings such as America had never before known in its intercourse with England. Could it be that America was deceived in her confidence; that she had but substituted the absolute sovereignty of parliament, which to her would prove the sovereignty of a commercial aristocracy, for the despotism of the Stuarts? Boston was the centre of the revolution which now spread to the Chesapeake; in less than a century, it would commence a revolution for humanity, and rouse a spirit of power to emancipate the world. |