THE END OF AN ERA
But the future of the New England
colonies was to be decided in England and not in America.
If the orthodox leaders in the colony thought that
the new King had levelling sympathies or would thrust
aside the policy already adopted by the English authorities
for the defense of the colonies and the maintenance
of the acts of trade, they greatly misjudged the situation.
King William, though a Protestant, was no lover of
revolution, and, though he had himself engaged in one,
he could assert the dignity of the prerogative with
as much vigor as any Stuart. He was not a politician,
but a soldier, and he was quite as likely to see the
necessity of organizing New England for defense against
the enemy as he was to listen favorably to appeals
from Massachusetts for a restoration of her charter.
Increase Mather had gone to England
in 1688 to petition James II for relief from the burdens
of the Andros rule. His impressive personality,
his power as a ready and forcible speaker, his resourcefulness
and energy, and his acquaintance with influential
men in England, both Anglicans and Dissenters, made
him the most effective agent who had ever gone to
England in the interest of the colony. He was
able to bring the grievances of Massachusetts to the
personal attention of James II; and he had received
hope of a confirmation of land titles and permission
to call a general assembly, when the flight of the
King brought his efforts to naught. He then turned
to the new Parliament, hoping to save the colony by
means of a rider to the bill for restoring corporations
to their ancient rights and privileges; but the dissolution
of this body ended hopeful efforts in that direction
also. A year’s “Sisyphean labor”
came to nothing. No remedy remained except an
appeal to the new King, and during 1690 and 1691,
the reconstruction of Massachusetts became one of
the most important questions brought before the Lords
of Trade. William III and his advisers were agreed
on one point: that Massachusetts should never
again be independent as she formerly had been, but
should be brought within the immediate control of the
Crown, through a governor of the King’s appointment.
They took the ground that, with a French war already
begun, it was no time to discuss colonial rights and
privileges, for the demands of the empire took precedence
over all questions of a merely local character in America.
Andros was now recalled and instructions
were sent to Massachusetts to release all her prisoners.
With their arrival in England in February, 1690, the
debate before the committee went on in a new and livelier
fashion. Randolph renewed his complaints in every
form known to his inventive mind; Andros presented
his defense and was relieved of all charges of mal-administration;
Mather and others contested every move of their opponents
and sought to obtain as favorable terms as possible
for Massachusetts; while Oakes and Cooke, sent over
by the colony as its official agents and representing
the uncompromising Puritan wing, hindered rather than
helped the cause by insisting that no concessions
should be made and that Massachusetts should receive
a confirmation of all her former privileges.
Mather’s success was noteworthy. He could
not prevent the appointment of a royal governor or
the separation of New Hampshire from Massachusetts,
nor could he obtain the right of coinage for the colony;
but he did secure the permanent annexation of Maine
and the Plymouth colony, and a large measure of appointive
power and legislative control for the people.
In some ways most significant of all, he obtained
from the Crown the noteworthy concession that the
council of the colony should be chosen by the general
assembly and not be appointed from England, as was
the case with all the other royal colonies. Even
New Hampshire eventually had the same governor as
Massachusetts, thus preserving a union for all central
and northern New England, which was destined to last
for forty-four years.
The charter of 1691 was a compromise
between the old government which had existed in Massachusetts
since 1630 and that of a regular royal colony, and
as such it satisfied neither party. It was greeted
in Massachusetts with vehement disapproval by the
old faction, who charged Mather with flagrantly deserting
his trust; and in England it was viewed as a shameful
concession to the whims of the Puritans. This
yoking together of parts of two systems, corporate
and royal, was to give rise in Massachusetts in the
succeeding century to a struggle for control that
deeply affected the course of the colony’s later
history.
In all the New England colonies, the
fall of Andros and the close of the century marked
the end of an era in which the dominant impulse was
the religious purpose that actuated the original colonists
in coming to America. The desire for a political
isolation that would preserve the established religious
system intact was exceedingly strong in the seventeenth
century, but it ceased to be as strong in the century
that followed. The fathers gave way to the children;
the settlements grew rapidly in size, increased their
output of staple products beyond what they needed
for themselves, and became vastly interested in trade
and commerce with all parts of the Atlantic world.
Towns grew into larger towns and cities; and Portsmouth,
Newbury, Salem, Marblehead, Boston, Newport, New London,
Hartford, Wethersfield, Middletown, New Haven, Fairfield,
and Stamford became, in varying degrees, centers of
an increasing population and of new business interests
that brought New England into closer contact with
the other colonies, with the West Indies, and with
the Old World. England became involved in the
long struggle with France and not only called on the
colonies to aid her in military campaigns against
the French in America, but endeavored to bring them
within the scope of her colonial empire. All these
influences tended to expand the life of New England
and to force its people more and more out of their
isolation. Yet, despite this fact, the Puritan
colonies Connecticut and Rhode Island especially continued
to lie in large part outside the pale of British control
and example, and their inhabitants continued to accept
religion and the Puritan standards of morals as the
guide of their daily lives.