THE ANDROS REGIME IN NEW ENGLAND

Without a charter Massachusetts stood bereft of her privileges and at the mercy of the royal will. She was now a royal colony, immediately under the control of the Crown and likely to receive a royal governor and a royal administration, as had other royal colonies. But the actual form that reconstruction took in New England was peculiar and rendered the conditions there unlike those in any other royal colony in America. The territory was enlarged by including New Hampshire, which was already in the King’s hands, Plymouth, which was at the King’s mercy because it had no charter, Maine, and the Narragansett country. Eventually there were added Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and the Jerseys eight colonies in all, a veritable British dominion beyond the seas. For its Governor, Colonel Percy Kirke, recently returned from Tangier, was considered, but Randolph, whose advice was asked, knowing that a man like Kirke, “short-tempered, rough-spoken, and dissolute,” would not succeed, urged that his name be withdrawn. It was agreed that the Governor should have a council, and at first the Lords of Trade recommended a popular assembly, whenever the Governor saw fit; but in this important particular they were overborne by the Crown. After debate in a cabinet council, it was determined “not to subject the Governor and council to convoke general assemblies of the people, for the purpose of laying on taxes and regulating other matters of importance.” This unfortunate decision was a characteristic Stuart blunder for which the Duke of York (afterwards James II), Lord Jeffreys (not yet Lord Chancellor), and other ministers were responsible. Kirke, Jeffreys, and the Duke of York may well have seemed to Cotton Mather “Wild Beasts of the Field,” dangerous to be entrusted with the shaping of the affairs of a Puritan commonwealth.

The death of Charles II in February, 1685, postponed action in England, and in Massachusetts the government went on as usual, the elections taking place and deputies meeting, though with manifest half-heartedness. Randolph was able to prevent the sending of Kirke, and finally succeeded in persuading the authorities that it would be a good plan to set up a temporary government, while they were making up their minds whom to appoint as a permanent governor-general of the new dominion. He obtained a commission as President for Joseph Dudley, son of the former Governor, an ambitious man, with little sympathy for the old faction and friendly to the idea of broadening the life of the colony by fostering closer relations with England. Randolph himself received an appointment as register and secretary of the colony, and for once in his life seemed riding to fortune on the high tide of prosperity. In 1685, he obtained nearly L500 for his services and for his losses up to that date; and when the following January he started on his fifth voyage to New England, he bore with him not only the judgment against the charter, the commission to Dudley as President, and two writs of quo warranto against Connecticut and Rhode Island, but also a sheaf of offices for himself secretary, postmaster, collector of customs. He was later to become deputy-auditor and surveyor of the woods. With him went also the Reverend Robert Ratcliffe, rector of the first Anglican church set up in Boston. Just a week after the arrival of Randolph and Ratcliffe in Boston, the old assembly met for the last time, and on May 21, 1686, voted its adjournment with the pious hope, destined to be unfulfilled, that it would meet again the following October. The Massachusetts leaders seem almost to have believed in a miraculous intervention of Providence to thwart the purposes of their enemy.

The preliminary government lasted but six months and altered the life of the people but little. For “Governor and Company” was substituted “President and Council,” a more modish name, as some one said, but not necessarily one that savored of despotism. But however conciliatory Dudley might wish to be, his acceptance of a royal commission rankled in the minds of his countrymen; and his ability, his friendly policy, his desire to leave things pretty much as they had been, counted for nothing because of his compact with the enemy. In the opinion of the old guard, he had forsaken his birthright and had turned traitor to the land of his origin. Time has modified this judgment and has shown that, however unlovely Dudley was in personal character and however lacking he was at all times in self-control, he was an able administrator, of a type common enough in other colonies, particularly in the next century, serving both colony and mother country alike and linking the two in a common bond. Under him and his council Massachusetts suffered no hardships. He confirmed all existing arrangements regarding land, taxes, and town organization, and, knowing Massachusetts and the temper of her people as well as he did, he took pains to write to the King that it would be helpful to all concerned if the Government could have a representative assembly. To grant the people a share in government would, he believed, appease discontent on one side and help to fill an empty treasury on the other; but nothing came of his suggestion.

Throughout New England as a whole, the daily routine of life was pursued without regard to the particular form of government established in Boston. In Massachusetts the election of deputies stopped, but in other respects the town meetings carried on their usual business. In other colonies no changes whatever took place. Men tilled the soil, went to church, gathered in town meetings, and ordered their ordinary affairs as they had done for half a century. The seaports felt the change more than did the inland towns, for the enforcement of the navigation acts interfered somewhat with the old channels of trade and led to the introduction of a court of vice-admiralty which Dudley held for the first time in July to try ships engaged in illicit trade. Over the forts and the royal offices fluttered a new flag, bearing a St. George’s cross on a white field, with the initials J. R. and a crown embroidered in gold in the center of the cross, that same cross which Endecott had cut from the flag half a century before. To many the new flag was the symbol of anti-Christ, and Cotton Mather judged it a sin to have the cross restored; but others felt with Sewall, the diarist, who said of the fall of the old government: “The foundations being destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

Perhaps the greatest innovation in any case, the novelty that aroused the largest amount of curiosity and excitement was the service according to the Book of Common Prayer, held at first in the library room of the Town House, and afterwards by arrangement in the South Church, and conducted by the Reverend Robert Ratcliffe in a surplice, before a congregation composed not only of professed Anglicans but also of many men of Boston who had never before seen the Church of England form of worship. The Anglican rector, by his somewhat unfortunate habit of running over the time allowance and keeping the waiting Congregationalists from entering their own church for the enjoyment of their own form of worship, caused almost as much discontent as did the dancing-master of whom the ministers had complained the year before, who set his appointments on Lecture days and declared that by one play he could teach more divinity than Mr. Willard or the Old Testament. Other “provoking evils” show that not all the breaches in the walls were due to outside attacks. A list of twelve such evils was drawn up in 1675, and the crimes which were condemned, and which were said to be committed chiefly by the younger sort, included immodest wearing of the hair by men, strange new fashions of dress, want of reverence at worship, profane cursing, tippling, breaking the Sabbath, idleness, overcharges by the merchants, and the “loose and sinful habit of riding from town to town, men and women together, under pretence of going to lectures, but really to drink and revel in taverns.” The law forbidding the keeping of Christmas Day had to be repealed in 1681. Mrs. Randolph, when attending Mr. Willard’s preaching at the South Church, was observed “to make a curtsey” at the name of Jesus “even in prayer time”; and the colony was threatened with “gynecandrical or that which is commonly called Mixt or Promiscuous Dancing,” and with marriage according to the form of the Established Church. The old order was changing, but not without producing friction and bitterness of spirit. The orthodox brethren stigmatized Ratcliffe as “Baal’s priest,” and the ministers from their pulpits denounced the Anglican prayers as “leeks, garlick, and trash.” The upholders of the covenant were convinced that already “the Wild Beasts of the Field” were assailing the colony.

Randolph journeyed on horseback twice to Rhode Island, and once to Connecticut, serving his writs upon those colonies. Rhode Island agreed willingly enough to surrender her charter without a suit, but the authorities of Connecticut, knowing that the time for the return of the writ had expired, gave no answer, debating among themselves whether it would not be better, if they had to give in, to join New York rather than Massachusetts. Randolph attributed their hesitation to their dislike of Dudley, for whom he had begun to entertain an intense aversion. He charged Dudley with connivance against himself, interference with his work, appropriation of his fees, and too great friendliness toward the old faction in Boston. Before the provisional government had come to an end, he was writing home that Dudley was a “false president,” conducting affairs in his private interest, a lukewarm supporter of the Anglican church, a backslider from his Majesty’s service, turning “windmill-like to every gale.” Such was Dudley’s fate in an era of transition hated by the old faction as an appointee of the Stuarts and by Randolph as a weak servant of the Crown. Writing in November, Randolph longed for the coming of the real governor, who would put a check upon the country party and bring to an end the time-serving and trimming of a president whom he deemed no better than a Puritan governor.

The new Governor-General, who entered Boston harbor in the Kingfisher on December 19, 1686, was Sir Edmund Andros, a few years before the Duke of York’s Governor for the propriety of New York. Andros at this time was forty-nine years old; he was a soldier by training and a man of considerable experience in positions requiring executive ability. His career had been an honorable one, and no charges involving his honesty, loyalty, or personal conduct had ever been entered against him. When he was in New York, he had been brought on several occasions into contact with the Massachusetts leaders, and though their relations had never been sympathetic, they had not been unfriendly. While in England from 1681 to 1686, he had been freely consulted regarding the best method of dealing with the problems in America and had shown himself in full accord with that policy of the Lords of Trade which attempted to consolidate the northern colonies into a single government for the execution of the acts of trade and defense against the encroachments of the French and Indians. He was probably fully aware of the difficulties that confronted the new experiment, but as a soldier he was ready to obey orders. His natural disposition and military training rendered him impatient of obstacles, and his unfamiliarity with any form of popular government for New York had been controlled by a governor and council only made extremely uncertain his success in New England, where affairs had been managed by the easy-going, dilatory method of debate and discussion. As a disciplinarian, he could not appreciate the New Englander’s fondness for disputation and argument; as a soldier, he was certain to obey to the full the letter of his instructions; and, as an Anglican, he was likely to favor the church and churchmen of his choice. He was not a diplomat, nor was he gifted with the silver tongue of oratory or the spirit of compromise. He came to New England to execute a definite plan, and he was given no discretion as to the form of government he was to set up. He and his advisory council were to make the laws, levy taxes, exercise justice, and command the militia. He was not allowed to call a popular assembly or to recognize in any way the highly prized institutions of the colony.

On December 20, Andros, his officers, and guard, clad in the brilliant uniforms of soldiers of the British establishment, landed at Leverett’s wharf and marched through the local militia up King’s Street to the Town House, where he read his commission and administered the oaths. Except for the royal commissioners of 1664, no British officer or soldier had hitherto set foot on the streets of Boston. Redcoats had been sent to New York and Virginia, but never before had they appeared in New England, and this visible sign of British authority must have seemed to many ominous for the future.

Andros’s early impressions of what he saw were not flattering to the colony. He found the people still suffering from the devastating effects of the late war and further harassed by bad harvests, disasters at sea, and two serious fires which had recently done much damage in the city. He found the fortifications in bad repair, almost all the gun-carriages unserviceable, no magazines of powder or other stores of war, no small arms, except a few old matchlocks, and those unsizable and in poor condition, no storehouses or accommodations for officers or soldiers, and no adequate ramparts or redoubts.

Now the work that Andros had come over to perform, and that which was most important in his eyes, was the defense of New England against the French. The contest between the two nations for control of the New World had already begun. The territory between Hudson Bay and the St. Lawrence and that between the Penobscot and the St. Croix were already in dispute, and New Englanders had taken their part in the conflict. When Governor of New York, Andros had become aware of the French danger, and his successor Dongan had proved himself capable of holding the Iroquois Indians to their allegiance to the English and of extending the beaver trade in the Mohawk Valley. But at this juncture reports kept coming in of renewed incursions of the French, led by the Canadian nobility, into the regions south of Lakes Erie and Ontario, and of new forts on territory that the English claimed as their own. There was increasing danger that the French would embroil the Indians of the Five Nations and, by drawing them into a French alliance, threaten not only the fur trade but the colonies themselves. The French Governor, Denonville, declared that the design of the King his master was the conversion of the infidels and the uniting of “all these barbarous people in the bosom of the Church”; but Dongan, though himself a Roman Catholic, saw no truth in this explanation and demanded that the French demolish their forts and retire to Canada, whence they had come. Just as this quarrel with the French threatened to arouse the Indians in northwestern New York, so it threatened to arouse, as eventually it did arouse, the Indians along the northern frontier of New England. To the authorities in England and to Andros in America, this menace of French aggression was one of the dangers which the Dominion of New England was intended to meet, and the substitution of a single civil and military head for the slow-moving and ineffective popular assemblies was designed to make possible an energetic military campaign.

Andros had no sooner organized his council and got his government into running order than he began to prosecute measures for improving the defenses of the colony. He sent soldiers to Pemaquid to occupy and strengthen the fort there, and himself began the reconstruction of the fortifications of Boston. He turned his attention to Fort Hill at the lower end of the town, erected a palisaded embankment with four bastions, a house for the garrison, and a place for a battery; later he leveled the hill on Castle Island in the harbor, and built there a similar palisade and earthwork and barracks for the soldiers. He took a survey of military stores, made application to England for guns and ammunition, endeavored to put the train-bands of the colony in as good shape as possible, and in 1688 went to Pemaquid to inspect the northern defenses as far as the Penobscot. He kept in close touch with Governor Dongan, and promised to send him, as rapidly as he could, men and money in case of a French invasion.

To make his work more effective he took steps to bring Connecticut immediately under his control. Rhode Island had already submitted and had sent its members to sit with the council at Boston. But Connecticut had avoided giving a direct answer, although a third writ of quo warranto had been served upon her, on December 28, 1686. Consequently Andros wrote to the recalcitrant colony, saying that he had been instructed to receive the surrender of the charter. To this letter, the Governor and magistrates of Connecticut replied that they preferred to remain as they were, but that, if annexation was to be their lot, they would be willing to join with Massachusetts, their old neighbor and friend, rather than with New York. Dongan, perplexed by the heavy expenses involved in the military defense of his colony and wishing to have the use of additional revenues, had hoped that he might persuade the Connecticut Government to come under the control of New York, but Connecticut preferred Massachusetts and had stated this preference in her letter. Andros and the Lords of Trade deemed the reply favorable, although in fact it was ingeniously noncommittal, and they took steps to complete the annexation.

On receiving a special letter of instructions from the King, Andros set out in person for Hartford, accompanied by a number of gentlemen, two trumpeters, and a guard of fifteen or twenty redcoats, “with small guns and short lances in the tops of them.” He journeyed probably by way of Norwich, crossing the Connecticut River at Wethersfield, where he was met by a troop of sixty cavalry and escorted to Hartford. There, on October 31, 1687, the Governor, magistrates, and militia awaited his coming. Seated in the Governor’s chair in the tavern chamber where the assembly was accustomed to meet, he caused his commission to be read, declared the old Government dissolved, selected two of those present as members of his council, and the next day appointed the necessary officials for the colony. Thence he went to Fairfield, New Haven, and New London, commissioning justices of the peace for those counties and organizing the customs service. No resistance was made to his proceedings, though it was generally understood in the colony that the charter itself had been spirited away and hidden in the hollow of an oak tree, henceforth famous as the Charter Oak.

Connecticut and the other colonies became for the time being administrative districts of the larger dominion. Their assemblies everywhere ceased to meet, that of Rhode Island for five years. Courts, provided by the act of December, 1687, were, however, generally held. The superior court for Connecticut sat four times in 1688 and the county courts, quarter sessions and common pleas, where appeared the newly appointed justices of the peace, sat for Hartford County, the one ten times and the other thirteen times during 1688 and 1689. But the surviving records of their meetings are few and references to their work very rare. The ordinary business of everyday life was carried on by the towns alone, which continued their usual activities undisturbed. In Connecticut, before Andros arrived, the assembly had taken the precaution to issue formal patents of land to the towns and to grant the public lands of the colony to Hartford and Windsor to prevent their falling into the hands of the new Government. This act may at the time have seemed a wise one, but it made a great deal of trouble afterwards.

The Dominion of New England, which now extended from the Penobscot to the borders of New York, was organized as a centralized government, with the old colonies serving as counties for administration and the exercise of justice. But as plans for an expedition against the French began to mature, it became evident that, if the French were to be successfully met, a further extension of territory was necessary; so in April, 1688, a second commission was issued to Andros, constituting him Governor of all the territory from the St. Croix River to the fortieth parallel, and thus adding to his domain New York and the Jerseys. Delaware and Pennsylvania were excepted by special royal intervention. Dongan was recalled, and Francis Nicholson was appointed lieutenant-governor under Andros, with his residence in New York.

Thus on paper Andros was Governor-General of a single territory running from the Delaware River and the northern boundary of Pennsylvania northward to the St. Lawrence, eastward to the St. Croix, and westward to the Pacific. There was an attempt here to reproduce, in size and organization, the French Dominion of Canada, but the likeness was only in appearance. To organize and defend his territory, Andros had two companies of British regulars, half a dozen trained officers, the local train-bands, which were not to be depended on for distant service, and a meager supply of guns and ammunition. Instead of having under him a body of colonials, such as were the belligerent gentlemen of Canada, who were eager to take part in raids against the English and who led their savage followers with the craft of the redskin and the intelligence of the white man, he had many separate groups of people. Averse to war and accustomed to govern themselves, most of these distrusted him and wanted to be rid of him, and desired only the restoration of their old governments without regard to those dangers which they were fully convinced they could meet quite as well themselves.

Though Andros’s authority stretched over such an enormous territory, his actual government was confined to Massachusetts and the northern frontier. He paid very little attention to Connecticut, Plymouth, and Rhode Island. With but two or three exceptions, the meetings of his council were held in Boston; the laws passed affected the people of that colony; and the complaints against him were chiefly of Massachusetts origin. Massachusetts was his real enemy, and it was Massachusetts that finally overthrew him. Andros was a soldier who never forgot the main object of his mission, and it is hardly surprising that he showed neither tact nor patience in his dealings with a colony that did little else but check and thwart the plans that had been entrusted to him for execution. The people of Massachusetts charged him with tyranny and despotism. Their leaders, many of whom were members of his council, complained of the council proceedings, which, they said, were controlled by Andros and his favorites, so that debate was curtailed, objections were overruled, and the vote of the majority was ignored. There is much truth in the charge, for Andros was self-willed, imperious, and impatient of discussion. On the other hand the Puritan leaders inordinately loved controversy and debate. If Andros was peremptory, the Puritan councillors were obstructive.

A more legitimate charge was the absence of a representative assembly and the levying of taxes by the fiat of the council. But Andros had no choice in this matter: he was compelled to govern according to his instructions. Not only was his treasury usually empty, but he was always confronted with the heavy expense of fortification and of protecting the frontier. He does not appear to have been excessive in his demands, and in case of any unusual levies, as of duties and customs, he referred the matter to the Crown for its consent. But, as Englishmen, the people preferred to levy their own taxes and considered any other method of imposition as contrary to their just rights. Andros consequently had a great deal of trouble in raising money. Even in the council, tax laws were passed with difficulty, and the people of Essex County, notably in town meetings at Topsfield and Ipswich, protested vigorously against the levying of a rate without the consent of an assembly. John Wise, the Ipswich minister, and others were arrested and thrown into jail, and on trial Wise, according to his own report of the matter, was told by Dudley, the chief-justice, “You have no more privileges left you than to be sold as slaves.” Wise was fined and suspended from the ministry, and it is possible that his recollection of events was affected by the punishment imposed.

In the matter of property, land titles, quit-rents, and fees, the colonists had warrant for their criticism and their displeasure. Many of those whom Andros associated with himself were New Yorkers who had served with considerable success in their former positions, but who had all the characteristics of typical royal officials. To the average English officeholder of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, office was considered not merely an opportunity for service but also an opportunity for profit. Hitherto Massachusetts had been free from men of this class, common enough elsewhere and destined to become more common as the royal colonies increased in number. Palmer, the judge, Graham, the attorney-general, and West, the secretary, hardly deserve the stigma of placemen, for they possessed ability and did their duty as they saw it, but their standards of duty were different from those held in Massachusetts. People in England did not at this time view public office as a public trust, which is a modern idea. Appointments under the Crown went by purchase or favor, and, once obtained, were a source of income, a form of investment. Massachusetts and other New England colonies were far ahead of their time in giving shape to the principle that a public official was the servant of those who elected him, but to such men as Randolph and West and the whole office-holding world of this period, such an idea was unthinkable. They served the King and for their service were to receive their reward, and such men in America looked on fees and grants of land as legitimate perquisites. In New York they had been able to gratify their needs, but in Massachusetts such a view of office ran counter to the traditions and customs of the place, and attempts to apply it caused resentment and indignation. The efforts of these men, among whom Randolph was the prince of beggars, to obtain grants of land, to destroy the validity of existing titles, to levy quit-rents, and to exact heavy fees, were a menace to the prosperity of the colony; while the further attempt to destroy the political importance of the towns by prohibiting town meetings, except once a year, was an attack on one of the most fundamental parts of the whole New England system. Andros himself, though laboring to break the resisting power of the colony, never used his office for purposes of gain.

That the Massachusetts people should oppose these attempts to alter the methods of government which had been in vogue for half a century was inevitable, though some of the means they employed were certainly disingenuous. Their leaders, both lay and clerical, were unsurpassed in genius for argument and at this time outdid themselves. When Palmer was able to show that, according to English law, their land-titles were in many cases defective, they fell back on an older title than that of the Crown and derived their right from God, “according to his Grand Charter to the Sons of Adam and Noah.” More culpable was the revival of the unfortunate habit of misrepresentation and calumny which had too often characterized the treatment of the enemy in Boston, and the spreading of rumors that Andros, who spent a part of the winter of 1688-1689 in Maine taking measures for defense, was in league with the French and was furnishing the Indians with arms and ammunition for use against the English. Such reports represent perhaps merely the desperate and half-hysterical methods of a people who did not know where to turn for the protection of their institutions. A wiser and shrewder move was made in the spring of 1688, when a group of prominent men determined to appeal to England for relief and sent Increase Mather, the influential pastor of the old North Church, across the ocean to plead their cause with the Crown.

But relief was nearer than they expected. On November 5, 1688, William of Orange, summoned from Holland to uphold the constitutional liberties of Protestant England, landed at Torbay, and before the end of the year James II had fled to France. Rumors of the projected invasion had come to Boston as early as December, and reports of its success had reached the ears of the people there during the March following. Finally on April 4, John Winslow, arriving from Nevis, brought written copies of the Prince’s declaration, issued from Holland, and two weeks later, on April 18, the leaders in the city, including many members of Andros’s council, supported by the people of Boston and its neighborhood, rose in revolt, overthrew the government of Andros, and brought tumbling down the whole structure of the Dominion of New England, which had never from the beginning had any real or stable foundation. Having armed themselves, they seized Captain George, commander of the royal frigate, the Rose, lying in the harbor, as he came ashore to find out the cause of the noise and the tumult. Then they moved on to Fort Hill, where Andros, Randolph, and others had taken refuge. Here they defied the soldiers, who refused to fire, captured the fort, and carried their prisoners off to be lodged in private houses or the common jail. On the following day, they forced the Castle Island fort in the harbor to surrender and then imprisoned its commander; they demanded of the lieutenant in charge the delivery of the royal frigate and carried off the sails; and as nothing would satisfy the country people who came armed into the town in the afternoon but the closer confinement of Andros, they removed him from the private house where he had been lodged to the fort in the town. So excited was the populace and so serious the danger of injury to those in confinement, that West, Palmer, and Graham were sent to the fort on Castle Island for protection; Andros, after two futile attempts at escape, was lodged in the same quarters, while Randolph, as deserving of no consideration, was thrust ignominiously into jail. On the third day a council of safety, consisting of thirty-seven members, with the old Governor, Bradstreet, eighty-six years old, at its head, was organized to prepare the way for the reestablishment of the former Government. The council summoned a convention which, after hesitation and delay, authorized elections for a House of Representatives and the resumption of all the old forms and powers. On June 6, the assembly met, and to all appearances Massachusetts was once more governing herself as if the charter had never been annulled.

The other colonies followed the example of Massachusetts, and miniature revolutions took place in Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, where the Andros commissions offered few obstacles to the renewal of the old forms. In a majority of cases the old officials were at hand, ready to take up their former duties. Plymouth, having no charter, simply returned to her old way of life, precarious and uncertain as it was; but Rhode Island and Connecticut took the position that as their charters had not been vacated by law, they were still valid and had not been impaired by the brief intermission in the governments provided by them. In this opinion the colonies were upheld by the law officers in England. Before the middle of the summer, practically all traces of the Andros regime had disappeared, except for the prisoners in confinement at Boston and the bitterness which still rankled in the hearts of the people of Massachusetts. There was no such intensity of feeling in the other colonies, where the loss of the assembly was the main grievance, though in Connecticut the resumption of authority by the old leaders roused the animosity of a small but energetic faction which said that the charter was dead and could not be revived, and demanded a closer dependence on the Crown. Henceforth, that colony had to reckon with a hostile group within its own borders, one that deemed the institutions and laws of the colony oppressive and unjust, and that for a time resisted the authority of what its leaders called a “pretended” government. During the years that followed, these men made many efforts to break down the independence of the corporate government, and to this extent the rule of Andros left a permanent mark upon the colony.