Yale University Library 39002005333035 TOWNS ^ E A. FREEMAN AND W. HUNT t^ BOSTONIA-i^ V-^CONDITftAD -^r BOSTON i^'fj HENRY CABOT LODGE 'Yi^IL]l«¥]MH¥EIESIIinf« From the estate of Miss Henrietta W. Hubbard 1924 Historic Towns EDITED BY EDAVARD A. FREEMAN, D.C.L. & Kev. WILLIAM HUNT, M.A. BOSTON Historic Towns BOSTON BY HENRY CABOT LODGE. AUTHOR OF LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON) DANIEL WEBSTER; GEORGE WASHINGTON; A SHORT HISTORT OF THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA; ETC. LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. and new YORK; 15 EAST 16'" STREET 1891 All rights reserved Copyright, 1891, By Henry Cabot Lodge. Kni6crsita press : John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. PEEFACE. The original authorities on which I have relied in writing this brief history of Boston, are enumerated in Chapter XII. of my " Short History of the English Col onies in America," published in 1881, from which I have ventured to borrow two passages for the chapter in this volume on Boston in the Provincial period. In addition to the sources used before, I have now been able to draw also upon Sewall's Diary, which has been printed since 1881, and which is the most im portant contemporary authority on Colonial Massachu setts. My largest debt, however, and it is one which I desire to acknowledge in the fullest manner, is to the "Memorial History of Boston," 'each chapter of which was written by a specialist, and the whole edited with the utmost thoroughness and research by Mr. Justin Winsor. I wish also to take this oppor tunity to thank my friend Mr. Brander Matthews for many kind suggestions, and for the interest he has shown in the preparation of this volume. HENKY CABOT LODGE. Washington, March 27, 1891. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. POUNDING THE TOWN. FAGS Comparison of Ancient and Modern Cities and Races of Men — Boston as Seen by English and Western Travellers — The City's Part in History and Civilization — Changes in Two Hundred and Fifty Years — Norse Discoveries — English and Dutch Explorations — Arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth — First Exploration of Boston Harbour — Settlement at Weymouth — Sir Ferdinando Gorges' Schemes — ¦ Settlements at Hull and Quincy — Morton's Revels at Merry Mount — Puritan Discipline — Early Settlers and their Farms — The Council for New England — The Fishing Industry — Settle ment at Salem — The First Charter — Governor Winthrop and the Court of Assistants — Causes of the Puritan Emigration from Eng land — Arrival of Winthrop's Fleet — Settlement at Charlestown — The Church Covenant — Removal of Settlement from Charlestown to Boston ... . . . . . .... . . 1 CHAPTER II. THE BJSE OF CHURCH AND STATE. Physical Conditions of the Site of the City — Sufferings of the Early Settlers — Extensive Immigration — Growth and Prosperity — Char acteristics of our Puritan Forefathers — Disturbances in England — Religious Fen-our — The Church Covenant — Foundation of the Fir.st Independent Church in New England — Limitations of Citizenship in the New World — Democratic Form of Government — The Town ship and the Town Meeting — Community in Land-Holdings — Early Provisions for Education — The Union of Antagonistic Principles — Prohibition of Emigration from England — John Cotton, Henry Vane, and Hugh Peter — The Tribulations of Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson — Crimes against the State and Offences against the Church Differentiated — The Puritan Idea of "Freedom to Wor ship God " — Opposition to the Baptists — Rising Alarm in Eng- viii Contents. TAOS land about the New Colony — The Value of Diplomacy — Adoption of the "Body of Liberties" — Division of the General Coprt — Seeds of Federal Union — Massachusetts' Growing Independence of England — Educational Legislation — Death of John Winthrop . . 18 CHAPTER m. THE DEFENCE OF THE CHARTER. Changes between Winthrop's Arrival aud his Death — The " Wonder working Providence " — Struggle between Theocracy and Toleration — Persecution of the Quakers — Puritanism of Governor Endicott — Growth of the Colony's Independence of England — The Restor ation — The Regicides — Enforcement of the Navigation Act — Con cessions and Demands of Charles II. — ActioA of the Privy Council — Reception of the Royal Commissioners — Allotment of Troops for Service against the Dutch — Attitude of the General Court — Supplies for the English Navy ... . . 44 CHAPTER IV. KING Philip's war, and the loss op the charter. Renewed Activity in England's Policy toward the Colonies — Ran dolph's Mission — Indian Outbreak — Governor Leverett's Admin istration — Military Spirit in the Colony — An Ominous Eclipse — Attack on King Philip — Fresh Outbreaks — Death of Philip, and End of the War — Colonial Troops — Purchase of Maine — Ran dolph's Animosity and Oppressions — Political Ability of the Puri tans — Vacation of the Charter — Provisional Government — Growth of the Town —The Town Meeting — Puritan Principles and Energy 56 CHAPTER V. UNDER THE CROWN. Concessions to Episcopalians — Governorship of Sir Edmund Andros Puritan Principles — Opposition to Episcopal Rites — Sewall's Diary — Shrovetide Celebrations — Dispute with Andros about the Meet ing-House — Funeral of Lady Andros — Opposition to Taxation — Proclamation of William and Mary — "A Buzzing among the Peo ple" — Arrest and Retirement of Andros — Mission of Increase Mather — Appointment of Sir William Phipps 69 Contents. ix CHAPTER VI. UNDER THE PROVINCE CHARTER. FAOE Career of Sir William Phipps — The Witchcraft Delusion — Cotton Mather — Phipps's Administration — Tlie Colony under Stoughton — Governorship of the Earl of Bellomont — Captain Kidd and the Suppression of Piracy — Administration of Governor Dudley — Ac tion of the General Court in Regard to the Governor's Salary — Ac cession of George I. — Appointment of Governor Shute — Father Rasle — Indian Wars and Massacres — Salary Disputes — Accession of George II. — Arrival of Governor Burnett — Administration of Governor Dummer —Settlement of Salary Disputes under Governor Belcher — William Shirley's Government — Capture of Louisburg — Administration of Governor Pownall — Opening of the Final Struggle with England ... 83 CHAPTER VII. THE CAPITAL OP THE PROVINCE. An Epoch in the Career of the Colonies — Downfall of French Power in America — Accession of George III. — Growth and Appearance of the City — Education — Literary Activity — Manufactures and Shipbuilding — Social Customs — Negro Servants — Severity of the Climate — Domestic Life — Amusements — Theatres, CofEee- Houses, and Clnbs — Piracy and its Punishment — Puritan Cus toms — Observance of Lord's Day ^Support of the Clergy — Prosperity • . • ¦ ... . . ... 103 CHAPTER VIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. Origin of the Quarrel between England and her Colonies — Sir Eobert Walpole's Policy — Tlie Navigation and Sugar Acts —Action of the Board of Trade — Administration of Governor Bernard — Corrup tion — Contest over Writs of Assistance — James Otis's Plea for the Colony — Grenville's Colonial Theories — Passage of the Stamp Act Public Outbreaks — Resistance to the Stamp Act —Pitt Supports the Colonies — Repeal of the Act — Townshend's Bill — Non-impor- Contents. tation Agreements — Landing of British Troops — Administration of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson — The Boston Massacre and its Results .... . . 118 CHAPTER IX. REVOLUTION. Changes in English Policy — Repeal of the Revenue Act — Relaxation of Non-importation Agreements, and Revival of Trade — Surrender of the Castle to British Troops — Benjamin Franklm Appointed Commissioner to England — Administration of Govemor Hutchin son — The Salary Question — Committee of Correspondence — Ten dency toward American Union — Action of the East India Company — Departure of the Tea-Ships — Public Meeting on the Tea Ques tion — The Mohawk Tea-Party — Manifestations of the Power of Democracy — The Boston Port Bill, and Regulation and Restriction Acts — Appointment of General Gage — Final Dissolution of the Provincial Legislature — Activity of British Troops — The Suffolk Resolves — Enrolment of Minute-Men — Expedition to Concord — Arousing the Country — Battles of Lexington and Concord — Siege of Boston — Battle of Bunker Hill, and its Effects — Washington Assumes Command of American Troops — Continuation of the Siege, and Washington's Campaigns — Evacuation of Boston — Changes iu Population and Society ... 137 CHAPTER X. FEDERALIST BOSTON. Post-Revolutionary History — Revival of Trade — Infusion of New Blood into Boston Politics — Shays's Rebellion — Ratification of the Fede ral Constitution — Visit of Washington and Adams to Boston — A Fine Point of Etiquette, and Early Question of State Sovereignty — Federal Assumption of State Debt — Career and Character of John Hancock — Social Changes — Infiuence of the French Revolution in Boston — The Jay Treaty and its Opponents — Prosperity of Com merce and Shipping — Federalist Hatred of Jefferson — Death of Alexander Hamilton — Hot Political Strife — British Outrages on the High Seas — The Embargo, and its Effects — Threats of Seces sion — Repeal of the Embargo — The War of 1812 — The Hartford Convention — Celebration of Peace with England — Growth of Manufactures — Change from the Town to the City Form of Government 163 Contents. xi CHAPTER XI. the city OP BOSTON. PAGE The Mayoralty of Boston, and its Occupants — Improvements and Re forms — Pernicious Mixture of National and Municipal Politics — Foreign Immigration, and its Attendant Evils — Political Corrup tion — Growth of Population — Finances — Admixture of Races — Puritan Influences — Power of the Clergy — Breaking Down of the Old Ecclesiastical System — Wealth and Commerce — Literature and the Arts — Anti-Slavery Movement — Religious Intolerance — PubUc Spirit — Education and Charities — The Future of the City . 194 INDEX 225 MAPS. 1. Boston, Old and New, reproduced by permission of the pub lishers, Messrs. Ticknok and Company, from "The Memorial History of Boston," edited by Mr. Justin Winsor . Frontispiece. References. Hills. L. First MeetlDg-House. A. Fox mil in the Marsh. M. Open Market. B. West Hill. (Treamount, p g^Ll ^'^ '^'S'fTfim Tir™] teter q! Mill Creek (partly excavated, 1643) T, „ „ „^, ¦ Be«^onHm. and South Mill. I wtl^ Hill, Snow Hill, later ^- SWp bere built by Nehemiah Copp's Hill [50 feet). F. Com Hill, later Fort Hill [80 feet]. Bourne, S. First Burial Ground. T. Blackstone's lot (dotted line). V. North Mill. Sues. W. Drawbridge (gave away 1659). Q. Watering Place. [Pond.] X. North Battery, 1646, H. Green. T- Tuthill's Windmill. K. Springgate. Z. Gate and Defences. 2. The Town of Boston in New England. By Captain John BoHHEB. 1722 Facing page 108 BOSTON". CHAPTER I. FOUNDING THE TOWN. Among the towns of which the history is told in this series, Boston in Massachusetts seems very modern. Yet these ancient towns of England are but of yester day, when we place them beside the cities of Greece and Italy ; and even the story of London itself, reaching, in tradition at least, from the days of Csesar to those of Victoria, would cover but a modest period in the long roll of the centuries witnessed by the Temple of Bubas- tis. The fact is that this is a comparative world, and the antiquity of races of men, or of their dwelling-places, depends altogether on the standard by which we deter mine age. In the United States, if we except New York, Boston is the oldest of the European settlements on the North American continent which has neither been abandoned nor remained, as at the beginning, a small town, but which has grown steadily with the growth of the country. To travellers from England, although Boston in its older part looks like many towns in their native land which have risen into importance in the last two hundred and fifty years, it seems never- l 2 Boston. theless essentially modern. To inhabitants of the Western States, on the other hand, who have never been out of their own country, Boston seems a very ancient place indeed; and its crooked streets, where men have walked for more than two centuries, fill them with a curious interest, in which the respect that an tiquity inspires is not uumingled with pity for a popula tion which is not convulsed by a census, and for a city which is not laid out exclusively on right angles. Age, moreover, may be reckoned in another way than by years. On the sound principle laid down in Lord Tennyson's familiar line, that fifty years of Europe are better than a cycle of Cathay, the age and historic interest of a town may be judged best by events, and by the part it has played on the wider field of national life, and in the advance of what is called civilization. In this view Boston, again with the exception of New York, is the ripest in age of any of the towns or cities in the United States. In the political events which have affected the history of the entire country, and in shaping the thought of a people who have come to be a great nation, Boston has played a leading part. Much has been crowded into her two hundred and fifty years, and in that time the town has lived a long life. In years alone, therefore, does Boston differ essentially from the other towns chronicled in this series. Yet this short coming, if it be one, is not without its advantages, for it enables us to go back to the beginning of things ; to observe the origin of the community thus gathered together, and to understand the sources of its strenc^th and of such influence as it may have had in the world. Founding the Town. 3 It is to-day but little more than two hundred and fifty years since the spot where Boston now stands was an unbroken wilderness. It is not possible, nor would it probably be very profitable, to know who the first Europeans actually were who gazed upon the fair har bour, with its wooded islands, its winding river, and its background of blue hills hemming in the little peninsula where a dense and busy population is now gathered. The Norsemen, pushing southward from Iceland, proba bly visited that region, and some persons think that they can even identify the spots in the neighbourhood of Boston where the old sea-kings landed and lived. But if they came at all, they passed away and, so far as we know, left no trace, so that they have neither value nor interest except as agreeable subjects of antiquarian dis cussion. Centuries elapsed after the period of the Norse adventurers, and then the Cabots ran down the coast, glancing perhaps into the harbour, and laying the foundation of the title to the largest territory ever con quered and held by the English-speaking race. Other navigators followed in their wake at various times ; but it was not until the seventeenth century had begun that the impending wave of European settlement and con- ¦ quest really drew near. Then it was that the hardy Dutch skippers rounded Cape Cod — reaching out like a bended arm into the sea — and explored the coast; making rude maps, and laying the groundwork for claims of ownership on their own part which proved less perfect than those of the Cabots, for more reasons than one. Then, too, came Captain John Smith, hero of many adventures, and of many books of his own writing. He also skirted the coast of New England, looked with 4 Boston. some care into Boston Harbour, made a map, — very creditably indeed considering his opportunities, — and then sailed away again, after christening the headlands and rivers, and laying, by his voyage, a much better foundation for permanent occupation than either his Dutch cousins or the earlier navigators. The van of those who were actually to enter in and take possession of the land was indeed not far behind him. Five years after his voyage, the little band of men and women famous in history as the " Pilgrims " reached Cape Cod, made their compact in the cabin of the " May flower," and then crossing the bay founded their settle ment at Plymouth. The following year in the lovely weather of early autumn, a party of them under Miles Standish made the first real exploration of Boston Har bour. They touched at some of the islands and head lands, pushed up the Mystic Eiver, visited the deserted camps of the Indians, and traded with some of the survivors of the tribes which had been swept away by war and disease as if to leave the country open to the new comers. The Pilgrims liked the region about the harbour, but seem nevertheless to have made no serious • effort to occupy it. It was, however, too inviting a spot to remain long untouched. A_ little more than six months after the visit of Standish, in May, 1622, the advance-guard of a party sent out by Thomas Weston appeared, and established themselves on the southern shore of the harbour at a place called Wessagusset, now known as Weymouth. Weston was a merchant who had rela tions with the Plymouth people ; but he was simply an adventurer and trader, and sent out his expedition Founding the Town. 5 solely for gain. The whole business was ill-managed, and came to a wretched end. The trading-post was abandoned, and the party dispersed. The next effort was of a widely different character, and aimed at nothing less than the erection of a princi pality instead of a paltry trading-post. It was one of the numerous attempts of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a familiar figure in the early history of New England, to carve out for himself and his children a vast domain among the unbroken forests of America. It was one of those visionary schemes — almost pathetic now, in their wild impracticability and wasted hopes — with which the new world seems to have filled the minds of adven turous men two hundred and fifty years ago. The en terprise began in all the pomp and circumstance which befitted the dreams of its projectors. The Council for New England, established under a charter granted in 1620 to the elder Gorges and thirty-nine other paten tees, met at Greenwich, June 29, 1623. This charter covered the whole of the New England coast; and among the adventurers were the Dukes of Buckingham and Eichmond, four earls, and many lords and gentle men who came to Greenwich to draw lots for possessions in the new country. King James himself drew for Buckingham; and Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his son Eobert were to go out at once to take possession of the new kingdom. A few weeks later in midsummer 1623 Eobert Gorges sailed, commissioned as lieutenant of the Council, with full powers, civil, military, and ecclesiastical. He was to settle in the neighbourhood of Plymouth, absorb those unconsidered sectaries who were really laying the foundations of a nation, and begin 6 Boston. the administration of the vast province which bad been allotted to him and the rest of his associates, on paper. When he reached New England, therefore, he established himself at Wessagusset, the scene of Wes ton's ill-fated venture, and proceeded to look about him. The usual result followed. All the bright hopes melted rapidly away in the presence of the hard facts of the climate and the wilderness. America was not to be conquered in that way, nor by people of that sort, and Gorges seems to have done nothing positive, except to quarrel angrily with his predecessor, Thomas Weston. In the spring of 1624 he went back to England, " not having found the state of things near to answer his qualitie and condition," and shortly after died. The gorgeous array of names whose owners had gathered together before King James at Greenwich had meant nothing. Sir Ferdinando was in fact the only one really interested, and he could not carry the burden. No second party came. Some of Gorges's followers went home with him ; others struggled through the winter, aided by the Plymouth people, and then re turned to England; while others still remained. Few of them were of the right stuff, and the whole con ception of the enterprise, indeed, was wildly wrong. There was no place for principalities nor powers in the new world, which needed hard-working men to build States, not adventurers seeking to transplant the forms and fashions of royalty and aristocracy, which withered. and died as soon as they touched the rough new soil. Gorges's expedition, however, made the first perma nent settlement on the shores of Boston harbour, for the post at Wessagusset was never wholly abandoned ; Founding the Town. 7 and from the remnant of his people came the men who first established themselves in solitary plantations within the actu-al limits of what is now the city of Boston. Two of these little settlements were made in 1625, on the shores of the bay at the head of which the future town was to stand. One was at Hull, where some men exiled from Plymouth and a few stragglers of uncertain origin gathered together. The other was formed by a trading-party under the lead of one Captain WoUaston, who settled within the limits of the present town of Quincy on a low hill near the shore, which still bears the name of the leader. WoUaston himself soon became dissatisfied and departed for Virginia, where he disposed of his indented servants and sent back for more, the trade in human beings having proved profitable. The second detachment was despatched, and then a revolt broke out among the ten men who were left, and WoUaston's representative was deposed, and driven away. The leader of this revolution was one Thomas Morton, " of Clifford's Inn, Gent.," who perhaps had visited the country before with Weston, and who had certainly come out in WoUaston's company. He was one of the strangest of the many strange figures that flitted across the stage of early adventure and settlement in America. With some education, and not a little Uterary abUity, he was as clever and worthless a scamp as can well be imagined, and when he took pos session of Mount WoUaston, which he named Merry , Mount, — or Mare Mount, — he proceeded to enjoy himself freely after his own fashion. His followers were a drunken set, who traded spirits and ammuni tion with the savages, maintained apparently a harem 8 Boston. of Indian women, and set up a May-pole, around which they celebrated the 1st of May in a wild and fantastic manner, not much resembling the English cus tom from which it was borrowed. It was easy to see that all the loose characters of the coast, — runaway servants, deserters from ships, and the like, — would flock eagerly to the standard thus erected, and that the motley crew collected in this way would prove a source of danger, as it already was a scandal, to their soberer neighbours in the other plantations. Accordingly, the Plymouth people proceeded from warnings to stronger measures ; and in 1627 Miles Standish appeared at Mount WoUaston, captured Morton and took him to Plymouth, whence he was shipped to England. In the following year he found his way back again, only to fall immediately into stronger and less merciful hands than those of the Pilgrims. The Puritans came down upon him, dealt with him in their thorough fashion, and broke up his settlement. He had however one great advantage over both his Pilgrim and Puritan enemies, for he wrote a narrative of his adventures in a reckless and amusing fashion of which they were incapable, and thus has kept the laugh forever on his side. His worth less and picturesque career and his wild and disorderly settlement have furnished material for the imagination of Hawthorne and Motley ; and while better men are forgotten, Morton and Merry Mount stand out with a glow of colour against the dark background of suffering which make up the story of the first years of New England settlement, and are still freshly remembered among the descendants of the very men who brought Morton himself to condign punishment. Founding the Town. g The little plantations at Weymouth, Hull, and Mount WoUaston, although within the limits of Boston Bay, nevertheless do not concern us here so much as the solitary men who had made homes for themselves upon the land now actually part of the modern city. On an island in the harbour was settled David Thomson, " Gent.," an attorney for Gorges, with his family. Thomson died in 1628, leaving to his family his island and to the island his name, which it has borne ever since. On Noddle's Island, now East Boston, was established Samuel Maverick, a young gentleman of property and education, who had there laid out a farm, built him a hou5e and fort, where four guns were mounted, and which served as a refuge and defence for all the planters of the neighbourhood. On the next peninsula, where Charlestown grew up, where the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, and which has now been absorbed by the city, was settled Thomas Walford, a blacksmith, with his family. Across the bay from Maverick and Walford, on the very spot where the future city was to rise, WiUiam Blackstone had laid out a farm and orchard, and built him a house on the western slope of one of the hdls, whence he could see the sun set across the windings of the river Charles, and over the wide brown marshes through which it made its way. Black stone was a graduate of Cambridge, a .man of learning and of books, who managed apparently to bring a library with him to the wilderness, and who seems to have sought only to be silent and alone. He was another of those characters that look dimly mysterious now, and thus excite our curiosity, but which no doubt would prove commonplace enough if we could ever get them 10 Boston. into nearer view. When new comers arrived, Puri tans, for whom he had no love apparently, he withdrew to Ehode Island, and there in a solitary spot lived to be eighty years of age. His diaries were burned after his death when the Indians destroyed his house, and the mystery aud story of his life, if there were any, perished. These four early settlers of Boston were all survivors of the Gorges expedition. Of the three settled within the actual limits of the city, two were gentlemen of property and education, and all were members of the Church of England. It is a curious fact that the first settlers on the ground where that town was destined to be built which was above all others the town of the English Puritan, were all of the Church of England and of the Court party. But they were merely the drift wood of a wreck. The Court and Church had failed to conquer and possess New England, and the time was at hand when the real conquerors — men of the same race but of widely different character and creed — were to come aud make the land their own. The title under which these new comers took pos session starts with the Company of Northern Virginia, which in 1620 turned over its property to the better- known Council for New England. The latter organiza tion, heavy with.much aristocracy, had a brief period of hope, and a still briefer period of prosperity due to the fisheries, and soon overclouded by French aud Spanish wars. Then dividing its property in 1623, it relapsed into silence so far as records are concerned, only to emerge into a second existence, vocal but unimportant, in 1631. Founding the Town. ii In the interval of silence, however, under cover of the titles and court finery aud empty parlance of the Council for New England, something real had beeu accomplished by people of a plainer but more effective sort. John White, clergyman of Dorchester, a man of serious mind, as men were in those days, was troubled by the godless life of those among his parishioners — and they were not a few — who were engaged in the fisheries. He conceived the scheme of forming a little settlement within the territory of the Council for New England, where fishing-crews could be better supplied with provisions, money made by trade, and religious instfuction given to both the fishermen and the set tlers. For this pious and frugal scheme he raised £3,000; a vessel was bought, and a fishing-station or settlement established at Cape Ann, near the present city of Gloucester. The little venture did not prosper. The money in stock melted away, no new money came in, and after three years the association dissolved their company, and sold what property they had. The causes of the faUure may be learned from White himself, but they were common to new settlements, and are not now of moment. The sinking of the little fortunes of the Dorchester Associates in the vast sea of colonial losses and mishaps would not be worth remembering were it not for the thread, slender withal, but yet distinct and strong, which connects them with successors of a very similar char acter. The people in England who were shortly to furnish the force to move the. English world were the hard-working. God-fearing men who took life and reli gion and politics very seriously, and who urged, in per- 12 Boston. sistent fashion, that matters in England both in Church and State were in evil plight, and in sore need of reform. Whenever in that first half of the seventeenth century in England we come across these men, we may know that, whether wisely or unwisely, something was actually and effectually done, and that we have got clear of the court atmosphere of lies and vacillations, of halt ing action and unworthy ambition. In the founder of the little Dorchester company we have one of these earnest men, full of serious purpose, troubled about many things, and striving much, whom the world knows as Puritans. With such a promoter as John White there were sure to be some followers of like character ; and when the little enterprise went to pieces there were four "prudent and honest men" who remained. Headed by Eoger Conant, a man stiU clear to us as possessed of leadership and force, these four went south ward and westward from Cape Ann and settled at a place called Naumkeag, to be better known in future as Salem. To these men, if they would stay, as stay they did in very manful fashion, the Eev. John White promised aid, support, and a patent. How much he had to do with what followed is not perfectly deter mined, and is now of little consequence ; it sufi&ces that he kept his word. Then during the silent period of the records of the Council for New England a patent for lands was ob tained, only to be soon lost sight of and overshadowed by a royal charter. Just how this charter was secured no one has ever known ; . but greater forces were behind this movement than had ever been summoned as yet to any colonizing of the new world. It passed the seals Founding the Town. 13 March 4 1629, a date to be made widely memorable by one of its descendants ; for the charter of a trading- company thus obtained was destined to become the fundamental law of a State, and the first of the written constitutions which have become the corner-stones of American systems of government. It was not by acci dent that the charter came to these large results. Both the charter and its purposes were part of a well-matured plan, and nearly a year before it passed the seals the promoters had fitted out au expedition under the direc tion of John Endicott, who established headquarters at Salem, with a commission as governor of the colony in New England. At home the company had another governor, Matthew Cradock; and he it was who in July, 1629, read certain propositions, conceived by himself, for the purpose of inducing persons of worth and quaUty to transfer themselves and families to the plantations. These propositions were the subject of much careful and secret consideration, and resulted, as was undoubtedly intended by the promoters, in the agreement at Cambridge, which was signed by Winthrop and Saltonstall, and other leaders, and which also re sulted in the transfer of the title of the company itself to New England. This was the last of the preliminary steps toward the establishment of an independent government in Amer ica; and the men who put their names to this agree ment were persons of such standing and importance in the community as to prove beyond any doubt that no mere trading-venture or voyage of discovery was in tended. The signers of the agreement were country gentlemen and merchants well born, well connected, 14 Boston. persons of reputation and substance ; while their fol lowers whom they took with them were drawn from the hardy yeomanry of England, and from the thrifty mechanics and shopkeepers of her towns. After the arrangement had been made to transfer the charter of the company, the Court of Assistants elected a new governor in the person of John Winthrop, with Sir Eichard Saltonstall, Mr. Isaac Johnson (who married the daughter of the Earl of Lincoln), and John Endicott among the assistants. The purpose of the organization thus effected, though secret at the time, is now abundantly clear. The Puri tan party were coming slowly to the conclusion that reforms in England, both in Church and State, were impossible. With Strafford at the head of the army and Laud in control of the Church, with ship-money, forced loans, and illegal taxes, with Parliament dis solved and the king's purpose proclaimed of ruling without one, there seemed little hope in the Old World for the liberty-loving and religious men who made up the bulk of the Puritan party. For this reason they went forth to the New World to find a place of refuge for the people thus threatened and opposed. As Win throp said, in his " Eeasons to be considered for justi fying the undertakers of the intended plantation in New England," "God hath provided this place to be a refuge for many whome he meaues to save out of the generall callamity, & seeing the church hath noe place lefte to flie into but the wildernesse, what better worke can there be, than to goe & provide tabernacles & foode for her against she comes thether." With the charter in hand, the governor and company • . Founding the Town. 15 finally started with a small fleet of eleven or twelve ships about the 1st of April, 1630. Before going, they addressed a noble letter to those whom they left behind, in which they took leave with sorrow and affection of their country and of the Church of England, which they called their "dear mother." With this farewell they sailed; and after seventy-six days the "Arbella" and her consorts came to anchor off Salem, where Endicott received them, and turned the government over to Winthrop. There were gathered already at Salem some three hundred settlers. With Winthrop came seven or eight hundred, increased very shortly to a thousand, by some additional vessels; and this was soon after followed by a second thousand. No such attempt at settlement had been seen before on the American conti nent. It was not the longing for adventure, but the transfer of a people, a government, and a Church ; and this it is which separates it from all other colonizing undertakings in America at their inception, and which made the Massachusetts settlement from the beginning such a moving force in American history. The Uttle colony at Salem had had its sufferings like its predecessor at Plymouth, and the arrival of Win throp with his fleet was, as one may re&,dily suppose, welcome enough; but Salem did not suit the new comers for a place of settlement and the establishment of a town. They moved farther south' along the coast until they came to the spot where the village which became afterward the city of Charlestown, was planted, and which is now included in the larger city of Boston. Here they established a settlement; and on the 30th of July, Winthrop, Dudley, Johnson, and the pastor, 1 6 Boston. John Wilson, adopted and signed a simple church cove nant, which was the foundation of the independent churches of New England. Here too, at Charlestown, was held the first Court of Assistants ; and everything seemed to point to the permanency of the town as the capital of the Puritan State. A comparatively trivial cause led to a removal. The change of climate and exposure brought its inevitable result to those unused to such trials, in the form of illness and death. Isaac Johnson died, and his wife, the Lady Arbella, as well as many others, leaders in the colony ; while in addi tion to these sorrows, provisions grew scarce, and the springs on which they depended for water began to fail. It was this lack of water which- finally drove Winthrop to leave Charlestown and establish his future city on the three-hilled peninsula across the bay. In the early records of Charlestown the story of the removal across tlie river is briefly told, and the state ment there made connects the infant Commonwealth with those early settlers, the waifs and strays of the Church of England expedition, who had already es tablished themselves about the harbour. The record says, — " In the meantime, Mr. Blackstone, dwelling on the other side of Charles Eiver alone, at a place by the Indians called Shawmutt, where he only had a cottage, at or not far off the place called Blackstone's Point, he came and acquainted the Governor of an excellent Spring there ; withal inviting him and soliciting him thither. Whereupon, after the death of Mr. Johnson and divers others, the Governor, with Mr. Wilson, and the greatest part of the church removed thither ; whither also the frstme of the Governor's house, in prepara- Founding the Town. ly tion at this town, was also (to the discontent of some) car ried; where people began to build there houses against winter ; and this place was caUed Boston." On the 17th of September, 1630, the removal took place, and the foundation of the new town was marked by an order of the Court of Assistants, which decreed that " Trimontaine " should be called Boston, — the good old EngUsh name of the principal town in the region whence most of the leaders and founders of the Puritan community had come. 1 8 Boston. CHAPTEE II. THE RISE OF CHURCH AND STATE. The place thus finally selected for the site of the future capital of New England would have been the last chosen probably, if the settlers had been able to peer into the future, and to realize how contracted the natural limits would prove for the population destined to gather there. To their eyes, however, there must have ap peared ample room and verge enough for any town they could picture to themselves, and nature had certainly made the spot fair and pleasing to aU who looked upon it. The place to which Winthrop. and his foUowers re moved, and where they built their city, was a peninsula connected on the south with the mainland by a narrow strip of ground which just prevented it from being an island. This strip was known as the " Neck " and con tinues to bear that title, although the process of filling up on each side has taken all meaning from the name. On the west of the Neck were long reaches of flats and marshes covered by the tides at high water, and known to the inhabitants of Boston for more than two hundred years as the Back Bay. Beyond the flats was the Charles River, sweeping down to the peninsula, and dividing it from the mainland on the north and east as the stream broadened first into a great inlet and then at The Rise of Church and State. 19 last united with the sea. On the east the peninsula came boldly down into the harbour, and as one fol lowed its line to the south, the " Neck " was reached once more, with marshes again between it and deep water. Moderu energy and the demands of a growing population have dyked and filled all these flats and marshes, and covered them with houses, the Back Bay becoming the west end of the city, where wealth and fashion have gone to dwell on gravel spread over the space once claimed by the tides aud inhabited only by sea-birds. On the main part of the peninsula the land rose abruptly into three small hUls, which fell away toward the harbour in gentle slopes. Here the set tlers buUt their houses, sheltered by the hills from the cold winds of the north and west, and looking out upon the ocean to the southeast. Wharves were soon run out into the deep harbour, which afforded an ex ceUent and safe anchorage, and thence from the water's edge the town began to grow, moving westward over the hUls behind. The men and women who thus founded Boston did not escape their share of the sufferings which formed the opening chapter in the history of every American settlement. The first winter was one of great severity. The people lived on " clams and muscles, and ground nuts and acorns," and the governor was seen giving " the last handful of meal in the barrell unto a poor man distressed by the wolf at the door." The current of life, however, was too strong and full in the Puritan settlement to be checked by the distress which had ruined so many previous attempts, and when as the hard winter was drawing to a close a ship arrived with 20 Boston. relief, there was no further danger of famine. The tide of immigration also flowed with a strength hitherto unheard of; for it was estimated that in the ten years which elapsed before England again had a Parliament, twenty thousand Puritan Englishmen followed Win throp to the shores of Massachusetts Bay. The rise of the Puritan party in England, the meeting of the Long Parliament, and the breaking out of the great rebellion put a stop to this emigration, and turned the thoughts of the Puritans generally, and especially of such men as Hampden and Cromwell, from their plan of finding a refuge in the new world to the nearer work of redeem ing the old. In this volume it would not be appropriate, even if space permitted, to undertake to write the history of the States immediately founded by these Puritan immi grants, of which Boston was the chief city and the social, political, and religious centre. On the other hand, it would occupy but few pages to trace the Uttle history of the early municipal life of Boston. Not many words are needed to tell how the houses began to rise rapidly, and nestle at the foot and on the slopes of the three small hills of the peninsula, or how the wharves began to stretch out into the harbour, sUent witnesses of commerce and of the fisheries which began with the building of the " Blessing of the Bay,'' in the first year of settlement. The rapid increase of immi gration, all of which passed through Boston, leaving as it went its contribution of population, the opening up of the country to the west, and the consequent develop ment of trade across the ocean, all hurried the town forward in the pathway of growth and prosperity. Thus The Rise of Church and State. 21 it came to pass that the rude shelters erected at the beginning speedily gave place to more substantial and more comfortable buildings, that shops were opened, and wealth accumulated with a rapidity little to be hoped for in a land where nature had done so little to help man. The material rise of the town in stone and wood or in bricks and mortar, in the numbers of its people and the value of its trade, is something to be briefly noted in later times as this history proceeds. That which concerns us to-day as a real and lasting interest in the early history of Boston is the development of thought in religion and politics whicb centred in the little town that sprang up so quickly on the peninsula which but a few years before had known only the silence of the wUderness or the passing foot of the savage. The Puritan party of England, which in its day wrought so many wonderful things, was at the outset distinctly a party of reform and not a party of revolu tion or separation either in Church or State. There was a time, after Charles had entered upon his experiment of ruUng without a Parliament, when it looked as if the chances for reform were well-nigh hopeless ; and it was at this period that English Puritans conceived the idea of establishing in the new world a Puritan state in which as a last resort they could find refuge from the wrongdoing of the old. As it turned out, Charles was forced to caU another Parliament ; the great rebellion followed, and England was saved from the eighteenth century despotisms which ruined the other countries of Europe. But although the emigration which would have taken all Puritan Englishmen from England never came to pass, yet the state intended for their refuge 22 Boston. was founded none the less, and was populated by, the men in all respects own brothers to those who voted with Pym and Hampden in Parliament, who followed Cromwell at Naseby, and crushed the Scotch at Wor cester. Of the quality of this part of the English people, of their strength of wiU, of their courage and intellect, it is not necessary to speak further They cut their mark too deeply in the history of the English- speaking race all over the world to need either explana tion or description. But the history of Boston in its earUer years presents the picture of just what these Puritan Englishmen came to when they were unfettered by any of the traditions of the past, or by the limitations of an old society. Winthrop and his friends were not Separatists like their forerunners at Plymouth, whose flight from perse cution had led them first across the channel to Holland and then over seas to America. They were reformers, men who wished to mould Church and State in England to their own ideas, the ideas of a rational liberty and of a severe but simple Protestantism. Beyond this they did not go. They left England because they thought a revolution was being effected which would force her into political despotism on the one hand, and into the Church of Eome on the other. They thought that Charles and Laud were carrying England away from the true English standards, and they wished to bring her back to what they believed to be her right and wonted place. Whether they or Charles were the real innovators it is not worth while to discuss here. There at least can be no doubt that while the Puritans wished for reforms, they were convinced that those reforms were The Rise of Church and State. 23 in truth but a real conservatism which would draw Eng land back into the old ways of freedom and Protestant ism, from which she had been torn. It was in this spirit that they founded their colony, took their charter, and bade farewell to their mother church. When however they had once settled down in their new homes, they found all the conditions of existence utterly changed. Instead of being confronted at every step by powerful opponents, by habits, traditions, laws, and customs, they found themselves by the simple act of crossing the ocean able to do exactly what they pleased, without fear of offending or opposing any one less than three thousand miles away. Under their charter, as they could fairly interpret it, they might found a State and establish a Church. The Atlantic ocean and the troublous condition of the times were sufficient to protect them from their enemies at home, if they went to the very verge of independence or even beyond it. If they had theories or ideas, here on these rocky shores, with only the sUence of the boundless wilderness about them, they could carry them out ac cording to their fancy, and to the utmost range of their logical conclusion. The English world was then on the edge of a period of religious and political ferment, when every sort of crude fanaticism came to the surface, when nothing was too fantastic, and no belief too wild, to find utterance and foUowers. It would have been little wonder, if when suddenly set free at such a time, the men who came to Massachusetts had started some of the crazy experiments which filled men's minds in England a few years later, and which produced the agitations and delu- 24 Boston. sions that sprang up so rankly during the great rebeUion and under the rule of Cromwell. The Puritan emigrants to New England, however, were men of different stuff. Agitators and fanatics were among them, and came to them, but met nowhere with a more chilling reception or with more stern hostility. The Puritans of Massa chusetts, after the usual fashion of their race, were at bottom intensely conservative, lovers of law and order, and believers in authority. At the same time they had very well-defined views of their own as to what ought to be done in Church and State in England, and now they suddenly found themselves with nothing to reform, and able to set up unhampered by any restrictions just such a government and just such churches as they be lieved England ought to have. This vast liberty did not lead them into license or into fanciful experiments, but none the less it had, as was inevitable, an immedi ate and powerful influence upon them. They were driven forward upon the road marked out for them by their own beliefs with the irresistible force of circum stances. To the Puritans of that day, religion and a be lief in God were Uving realities so vivid and forceful that they overrode and made trivial every other thought. Once landed in America their first thought was of re ligion ; and for the exercise of religion, organization was a necessity. They must have anticipated, of course, that there would be no Church in the land whither they went, but they probably did not realize what this fact meant ; for they could not readily have conceived of the entire absence of an established Church, when in all their lives they had known nothing else. Here, then, was at once a question of the widest range. There was The Rise of Church and State. 25 now nothing to reform in religious matters, but only a Church to be built up just as they listed, new from the very corner-stone. To attempt to 're-create the vast fabric of the Church of England, the product of centuries of growth and of years of compromise, was as impossible as it was need less. In this new land, that which was simplest was best ; and partly as a carrying out of their own theories, and partly through the necessities of the case, Win throp, Dudley, Johnson, and John Wilson the pastor adopted a church covenant, to which allusion has already been made, and which ran as follows, — " In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in obedience to his holy will, and divine ordinances : " We whose names are here underwritten, being by his most wise and good providence brought together into this part of America, in the Bay of Massachusetts ; and desirous to unite into one congregation or church, under the Lord Jesus Christ, our head, in such sort as beoometh all those whom he has redeemed and sanctified to himself, do hereby solemnly and religiously, as in his most holy presence, prom ise and bind ourselves to walk in all our ways according to the rule of the Gospel, and in all sincere conformity to his holy ordinances, and in mutual love and respect to each other, so near as God shall give us grace." Thus was founded the first independent church of New England. Without bishops or priests or presby ters the church so established was in itself a religious unit, self-sustaining, independent, and governed by the worshippers who formed its congregation. It was a long stride from reforming the Church of England to 26 Boston. the establishment of such a system as this, and yet the mere change of surrounding conditions made it seem not a revolution in church government but the only natural and possible thing to do. Nevertheless, it was a thorough revolution, and it was the first complete severance of one of the ties which bound New England to Old England. The matter of religion was as near to the hearts of the body of the people as it was to those of the leaders. A month after the adoption of the covenant the first business considered by the Court of Assistants was how the ministers should be maintained ; and it then was ordered that houses should be built for them at the public charge. At the next General Court, held at Boston, in May, 1631, a far more memorable step was taken, — one which gave full expression to the Puritan ideal in Church and State. It was ordered as follows : " And to the end [that] the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good, men, it was ordered and agreed that for time to come no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same." Winthrop adds in his Journal that all the freemen of the Commons were sworn to this government ; and by this act Church and State were not merely united but actually were made one. Only religious men and good men were to be freemen and voters in the new common wealth, and religion and goodness were determined by membership in the church. Within the pale of the church it was a plain democratic government, both in things spiritual and things temporal, where all were The Rise of Church and Sta te. 27 equal in the sight of God and the law. But to the out siders dwelling under the government of the Massachu setts Bay Company the rule was that of a religious oligarchy, where the clergy determined a man's fitness both in religion and in politics, an enormous power, which, even after its reality had gone, continued for more than a century to exercise a dominating influ ence in New England. So long as the great body of citizens were members of the church, and therefore free men of the State, no very serious difficulty was likely to arise ; but the moment of trial was sure to come when a large minority existed who were deprived of political power because they did not stand inside the pale of the church. Within the single limitation thus imposed, the devel opment in political institutions went forward with great rapidity. At the third General Court, held in Boston in 1632, it was agreed that the governor, deputy- governor, and assistants should be chosen by the whole court including both assistants and freemen, thus re cognizing, always within the bounds of the church, the democratic principle, another vast stride from the political system they had left behind, and yet again a step which seemed perfectly natural and, in the new conditions, unavoidable. At the same session of the court it was ordered that two of every planta tion should be appointed to confer with the court about the raising of a pubUc stock; and accordingly two persons were appointed from each of the eight little settlements which had sprung up in the neigh bourhood of Boston. Here again was the planting of a principle quite as memorable as that which united 28 Boston. Church and State in one, and gave a vote to aU the freemen ; for this provision established once and for all in New England the doctrine that no one should be taxed without direct representation in the body im posing the taxes. In the following year the idea thus planted was expanded into a more definite form of regular representation by an order that there should be four General Courts every year, but that the whole body of freemen should be present only at the court for the election of magistrates, while to the other three each town should send deputies, who should assist in making laws and in governing the Commonwealth. This not only established representative government, as will be seen, but it also recognized the existence of the unit of the political structure of New England in the shape of the township. This is not the place to enter into a detailed account of the organization of the New England town, but its appearance as the unit and source of representation is of too great importance to be passed over without a word. The New England township was the corner-stone of the fabric of New England government. It was formed by a group of persons settling together in a given spot, and taking up a certain amount of land for farming and other purposes. By a curious process of reversion the Englishmen thus settled in the new world revived in a marked degree the ancient principles of communal property in land which their earliest progenitors had practised in the forests of Germany before they set out on their career of conquest. In many of these New England towns, pasture and woodland were owned in common ; and each citizen of the town had certain The Rise of Church and State. 29 rights of pasture for sheep or cattle, and certain rights of cutting wood, which descended like other property from father to son. These communal holdings have gradually disappeared, but a few have survived even to the present day, a curious monument of the fixity of habits of thought, and of the survival of the most ancient institutions in the midst of the rushing life of modern democracy. The other lands of the town, house-lots and farming lands, were held in severalty. The houses of the farmers were clustered together, for the most part, near the village meeting-house, whUe the lands which they farmed stretched about them in aU directions to the Umits of the township. More important, however, than communal rights or methods of farming was the system of town govern ment. All the citizens of the town assembled in general meeting once a year or oftener, levied taxes, decided on improvements, and appointed the necessary executive officers to carry out their behests during the ensuing twelve months. In the town meeting aU men met on an equality ; every citizen was entitled to free speech and a free vote, and no purer democracy, no more absolute example of a people governing them selves, has ever been devised. So long as the towns remained small, property equally distributed, and moder ate in amount, and the interests of the people few and simple, this method of government was as practical as it was admirable. When however the communities thus gathered together reached too great a population for the single assembly, they were obliged to pass out of the stage of the town meeting into a representative munici pal government, although this change did not begin 30 Boston. untU the first quarter of the present century was well- nigh spent. It was in the town meeting that every New Eng- lander became accustomed to deal with public affairs. It was there that he learned to be a poUtician and a debater ; and it was there also that the principle of union and of federation was taught, because the union of the towns made the State, and from that it was but a step to understand that the union of States would make a nation. The town organization was also one of great political force. The difficulty of combining a sparse population in any political movement was never felt in New England, as in many others of the American colonies. Her people were from the outset banded together in compact groups, and these groups were in turn welded together into a commonwealth. The power of political action in the New England townships was one of the great factors which separated the colonies from England ; and even as late as 1809 it was the action of the New England towns which shook the country, forced the repeal of the embargo, and sent Jefferson, who had always feared and admired them, into a retirement which was clouded by defeat and disappointment after all his years of triumph. The system of town government was the same in Boston as in the smallest and remotest village ; and what was true of one was true of all. Thus it came. to pass that while with one hand the Puritans set up a political system which rested on the most rigid religious tests, with the other they planted in the government of 'town and State, the purest democracy which has ever been seen. The Rise of Church and State. 31 At this very time also the records of Boston dis close the planting of another principle quite as im portant as that adopted either in religion or politics ; for it was then generally agreed that " Brother Phile mon Pormont shalbe entreated to become schoUmaster for the teaching and nourtering of children with us." Three years later aU the principal inhabitants sub scribed for the maintenance of a free school, and at the same time the General Court laid the foundation of Harvard College. In this way was founded a sys tem of free public-schools which spread to every town in the Commonwealth, and with them a college was estabUshed for the purposes of a higher education. Thus the Puritans arranged that a narrow creed should be the only test of citizenship, and on one side of it they placed a democratic government and on the other free schools. They fettered the human mind with their reUgious doctrines, while by their system of education and poUtics they struck off every shackle which could impede the march of thought. That they were aware of the profound contradiction which underlay this sys tem cannot be supposed. But whether they realized it ¦ or not, tbey had yoked together three principles which sooner or later must come into conflict. The history of Massachusetts is the history of the development of these principles, and of the final triumph of the two which made for freedom over the one which repressed all liberty except within its own narrow bounds. It was not long before the system thus established was tested. The Puritan inimigration which had begun in 1629 went on with accelerating pace, bringing with it not only scores of hardy farmers, mechanics, and 32 Boston. fishermen, but also some of the poUtical and reUgious leaders of the reform movement in England. So for midable was the emigration, that in 1633 an order was issued by the Privy Council to stop ships on the Thames in which some of the most distinguished members of the country party were supposed to be embarking for New England. There was indeed a rumor that, even Hamp den, Pym, and Cromwell were then contemplating a flight to the new world. Among the most eminent of the many eminent clergy men who came at this time was John Cotton of Boston in old England, who had preached there for more than twenty years in the famous church of St. Botolph. He was a man of brUUant talents, who left a considerable mark in the history of the colony ; but his first attempt to guide the people of Massachusetts was far from a success. In the election sermon which he delivered in 1634, soon after his arrival, he maintained that a magis trate ought not to be turned iuuo a private man without just cause. The matter was taken up very seriously, as any utterance from such a man as Cotton was sure to be, and the result was that the General Court put Winthrop aside and elected a new governor. No more conclusive answer could have been given to Cotton's doctrine. He had unwittingly come against the demo cratic principle which had been so carefully planted, and which had taken root so firmly in the new soU that the brilliant preacher, fresh from England and from the old conditions of society, probably did not even know of its existence. A year later two men more notable than Cotton, and fated to fill much larger places than he in the The Rise of Church and State. 33 history of the EngUsh people of that time, arrived in Boston. One was the noted Puritan preacher, Hugh Peter, destined to return to England to play a promi nent part in the troubles which ensued, and finally to pay the penalty of his distinction by death on the scaffold. The other was Henry Vane the younger, doomed Uke Peter to the same end on the scaffold, but a man of very different mould and fibre. Young and brilliant, of distinguished family, for he was the son and heir of Sir Henry Vane, the Comptroller of the King's Household, and had been engaged already in foreign affairs, Henry Vane threw himself into the affairs of the infant colony with eager enthusiasm, and with a touch of the fanaticism which never deserted him throughout aU his stormy career. For men who loved excitement and agitation, Peter and Vane had come at a fortunate time, as the colony was on the verge of the first of the • conflicts by which the Puritan system was to be tested, aud the right of Massachusetts to exist as a State was to be determined. The large immigration which had poured in since 1629, had brought with it, as might have been expected from an immigration of men who sought reforms both in Church and State, many persons with views unsettled by the condition of the times, and with brains seething with every sort of scheme for the solution of the relig ious and poUtical difficulties of humanity. The new world gave of course free scope to all these ideas, and the spirit of unrest in the colony was shown first by the replacing of Winthrop by Dudley as governor, and then after the latter's year of office the election of John Haynes in his place. There were distractions and 3 34 Boston. differences both political and, religious in the infant Commonwealth ; and these differences and distractions were a source of much anxiety to the leaders of the community, and above all to the ministers, who formed the ruling element both in Church and State. Vane and Peter threw themselves at once into the contro versies which had arisen ; and before three months had expired they had procured a meeting in Boston of magistrates and ministers, in order to effect " a more firm and friendly uniting of minds." The meeting declared itself in favour of a more rigid administration of the government. Winthrop, who was by far the wisest head among them all, was charged with having displayed "over-much lenity;" and the ministers de Uvered a formal opinion, " that strict discipline both in criminal offenses and martial affairs was more need ful in plantations than in settled states, as tending to the honor and safety of the Gospel." The manner in which the policy thus laid down was carried out, em bodies the history of the Puritan colony at that period, and was the turning-point in its early progress. From the beginning it seems to have been assumed by the Puritans that they should exercise an absolute power in determining who should dwell within their boundaries, with the right to expel any person whose presence they deemed prejudicial to the welfare of Church or State. They had used this authority in the case of Morton and other obscure but disorderly per sons whom they deemed harmful from a secular point of view, and also in the case of the Browns, who seemed to be hostile to the religious establishment projected by the Puritans. Their theory, however, was soon to be The Rise of Church and State. 35 put to a much severer test. Among those who came to Boston in 1631 was Eoger Williams, a clergyman, and even then a man of some repute. He was asked to act as teacher at the First Church in the absence of Wil son, but declined because the members would not make humble confession of sin for having communed with the Church of England. From Boston he went to Salem, where he met with some success, then to Plymouth, where he was not equally fortunate, and thence he returned to Salem in 1634, the Plymouth people fear ing that if he remained " he would run a course of rigid Separation and Anabaptistry." By this time his views had become more pronounced, and he undertook to deny the right of the magistrate to act outside of civil matters, and to question the rights of the colonists to their lands under the charter as against the savages. This states the cause of his offending in the language of his champions ; but no statement can disguise the fact that these declarations whether right or wrong, whether the utterances of a seditious agitator or the pleadings of a noble spirit in favour of soul-liberty, struck at the very foundations of the State which had been established. He was therefore sentenced by the General Court to de part out of their jurisdiction within six weeks ; but being allowed to stay till spring he continued to propagate his doctrines, and seven days after the " more firm and friendly uniting of minds " among the magistrates and ministers, Captain Underbill was despatched to seize him and ship him to England. Williams however escaped, and made his way to the Narragansett country, where he founded what afterward became the colony of Ehode Island, and thus passed out of the history of Boston. 36 Boston. Much more serious than this affair, however, was the controversy which arose a year later, and which grew out of the preaching of Mrs. Hutchinson. Ann Hutchin son was a clever woman, ready in speech and argument, and restless and active in mind. She began by drawing about her the principal women of Boston to discuss the sermons delivered by the ministers and lecturers, and it soon appeared that according to Mrs. Hutchinson the ministers and elders preached a covenant of works instead of a covenant of grace. It is difficult to un derstand at the present day the excitement which arose from this seemingly harmless difference. Gov ernor Vane and John Cotton espoused the cause of Mrs. Hutchinson, while Winthrop and Wilson opposed it. The Boston sentiment was Hutchin- sonian, but the outlying towns stood by the old leaders. Church and State were shaken and riven by the controversy, and at the spring elections in 1637, after a most exciting debate. Vane was defeated and Winthrop re-elected, while Mrs. Hutchinson was left in the hands of her enemies. This victory was won by the efforts and influence of the ministers, and they used the fruits of their victory after the fashion of priesthoods in all periods. It is not necessary to enter into the details of Mrs. Hutchinson's trial and exile. Without being subjected to actual bodily harm she was relentlessly persecuted, and driven with her followers from the borders of Massachusetts. Two of her sympathizers were disfranchised and fined ; eight were disfranchised, two fined, and three banished, while seventy-six others were disarmed. Hitherto the Puritans had dealt with intruders and outsiders who The Rise of Church and State. 37 had threatened to invade and disturb their community ; but this time they dealt with their own people, free men of the State and communicants of the church. By their victory they established their system beyond the reach of attack for many years to come; and it was not until new forces had gathered that they were again called upon to meet a similar emergency. In the case of Eoger Williams it is not easy to show that the government of Massachusetts did not have a perfectly good case against him on purely secular grounds. Church and State, politics and religion, were at that time and place so intermingled that it is ex tremely difficult to separate offences against the one from offences against the other. WiUiams, however, questioned the powers of the magistrates and the rights of the people to their land. The agitation of such doc trines as these struck at the very existence of the State. It was a critical period in their relations with England. The Puritans believed in law and order, and they were determined to have a vigorous and efficient government, which they rightly deemed essential to their existence. They were clearly entitled to defend themselves against all persons who by their words or deeds threatened the stability of the Commonwealth. In the case of Mrs. Hutchinson the conditions were different. Her offences were purely religious and doctrinal. The authorities argued, of course, that false doctrine was dangerous not only to morals but to the State. When Church and State were one, this was in a sense true ; but the methods adopted to put down these differences of opinion were none the less the methods of religious per secution, and Mrs. Hutchinson was pursued with all 38 Boston. the ferocity characteristic of a ruling priesthood in all lands and periods, and under all forms of religious faith. There can be no doubt that so far as the upbuilding of a strong and efficient State was concerned, this policy was entirely successful. To justify it on abstract grounds is impossible, and even its political necessity was, to say the least, doubtful. Whether rightly or wrongly, however, this system of harsh repression was the one adopted ; and it is to be feared that its authors were little concerned with the need of justification. They were satisfied that they were right, and they knew that they were successful. It is as easy as it is familiar, in this connection, to denounce the Puritans of Massachusetts as harsh and unfeeling bigots, who persecuted and banished the Uberal and open-minded spirits who came among them. But it is too often forgotten that at that period the world, according to our conceptions, was a narrow and bigoted world, in which differences in religious opinion were supposed to go to the very roots of everything. It is not remembered, moreover, that the Puritans did not come to Massachusetts to obtain for everybody "freedom to worship God," but to get freedom to worship God in their own particular way. They were reformers at home, not Separatists ; and when they lauded in Massachusetts, although they did not attempt to copy the Church which they had left, it never occurred to their minds that any Christian State worth having could exist with out an established Church of some kind, because that was a condition of affairs quite outside the range of their experience. They accordingly established a Church of their own, and made it one with their State, while hand The Rise of Church and State. 39 in hand with the establishment of this religious State went the building up of the body politic. Whoever touched the one touched the other, and according to the Puritan theory was to be dealt with unhesitatingly by the strong arm of the civil power. Little more remains to be told of this crisis in the early history of the colony. Winthrop and Vane con ducted and concluded a war of portentous pamphlets ; shortly after Vane departed, honorably dismissed with divers voUeys of cannon and musketry, and then the Hutchinsonian malcontents were trampled out. It seemed as if after such a victory as this the church could rest in peace ; but unfortunately for them, actual conditions in the long run made peace impossible. Within less than ten years the established Church was struggling with the Baptists, and inflicting fines and ex communication upon them, to its own satisfaction no doubt, but with very little effect in the way of putting down the dissent. During these ten years, also, the other controlling forces in the Puritan commonwealth were at work, and the development of the State, both politically and socially, was steady and advancing. The year after the depart ure of the followers of Mrs. Hutchinson the hand of power was stretched out against the Puritans, as they had stretched out their hands against their own enemies. The Puritan settlements had grown so fast, and become so important, that they attracted the attention of the government in England ; and the Lords Commissioners of Plantations sent out a sharp demand for the return of the charter, which they perceived too late had become the foundation of an independent State. The people of 40 Boston. Massachusetts, few and poor though they were, had in full measure the courage of their convictions; and as they appeared at their worst in dealing with Mrs. Hutchinson, they appeared at their best in facing the King of England. They began to arm, and were ready to resist force (if force were attempted) in defence of their charter. But they were also wise in their genera tion ; and before precipitating a conffict they determined to take the chances of delay, and to see what could be done by piecing out the lion's skin with the fox's. An humble petition was sent to England, and under the wise and politic leadership of Governor Winthrop the direct issue was "avoided and protracted." Delay served their turn ; for there were other Puritans at home with whom Lords Commissioners were quite uiiable to deal, and who soon absorbed the entire attention of the king and his advisers. Thus the Massachusetts charter was saved, and the Puritan State was able to go on in its independence for another fifty years. In 1641 the " Body of Liberties," or code of laws, was adopted by the people of Massachusetts. A very memo rable code it was, in which may be found the germ of many of the great principles of legislation upon which American government rests today. During this time, too, another political question was settled which also had an important bearing upon American methods of transacting public business. Boston by that time had grown sufficiently to have streets ; and wandering through those streets and pastures, in 1636, there was discovered a stray sow, which was taken and held by the finder. Captain Keayne. Then, after many months, the owner appeared ; and thence grew a mighty dispute which was The Rise of Church and State. 41 carried into the General Court, and which resulted in the division of the General Court into two houses, one of magistrates and the other of deputies. In 1643, however, the year before this legislative division took place, a much greater event occurred, and one fruitful of interest to the student of American his tory; for in that year was formed the New England Confederation or Union, consisting of the four colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecti cut. It would be inappropriate to enter here into any discussion of this far-reaching subject, or to trace the history of the New England Confederation which made these four colonies a great power at the time, and which served as an example for a similar union upon a much larger scale. But no history of Boston would be com plete without noting that the little Congress composed of the representatives of the four colonies met at Boston on Sept. 17, 1643, and there planted the federal princi ple of government which on Sept. 17, 1787, was again given to the world in the Constitution of the United States. During these years, too, relations were opened with the other colonies on the Atlantic seaboard, and the trade of Boston stretched out in every direction north and south. One of the most memorable of these relations was that with the two Frenchmen, La Tour and Aul- nay, who struggled for dominion in Acadia. The story is a long and intricate one, of Uttle interest now, although not lacking a picturesque and attractive side ; but it has an enduring importance as showing that to the repre sentatives of foreign States, Massachusetts took the atti tude of a completely independent government, and dealt 42 Boston. with Aulnay and La Tour just as independently, and in the same manner, as Charles and Buckingham dealt with the Huguenots and the French monarchy. During all this political and material progress the work of education went on. In 1642, the first Com mencement was held at Harvard College, where " nine young men of good hope performed their acts so as to give good proof of their proficiency in the tongues and arts." In 1645, we find in Winthrop's Journal that " divers free schools were erected," and that Boston made an order to allow forever fifty pounds and a house to the master, and thirty pounds and a house to an usher, — an example rapidly foUowed by the other towns. Two years later the free school was made the subject of a general law of the Commonwealth. It was then ordered that as it was " one chief project of that old deluder Satan to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures . . . every township in this jurisdiction after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty householders shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall re sort to him to write and read;" and it was further ordered that when "any town shall increase to the num ber of one hundred families they shall set up a grammar school the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university." No nobler legislation than this is to be found in the laws of any infant State ; but the men who framed it were blind to the fact that such legislation made impossible the religious system which they had also set up. Two years later John Winthrop died. He had pre vailed over every attack made upon him, and he died The Rise of Church and State. 43 in the fulness of his fame and popularity, mourned and beloved by the entire Commonwealth. Winthrop had shown himself to be a really great man, — one who took high rank in that small class of the founders of States, whose achievements have been most difficult and at the same time of most value to their fellowmen. He was buried with "great solemnity and honor" in what is now known as the King's Chapel burying- ground. Under his leadership and influence the lines on which the Puritan State was to move had been all marked out. The next stage in the history of Boston shows the passage of the Puritan town and colony through the period of Puritan ascendency and decline in the English-speaking world until after much suffer ing and tribulation the quiet of the provincial time was reached. 44 Boston. CHAPTEE III. THE DEFENCE OF THE CHARTER. Winthrop's death was an event very memorable in New England, and it seems, as has been said, to make a natural division between the period of settlement and the period of growth and progress under the charter. When he came with his ships and his people to Boston harbour he looked upon wooded hills, unbroken save by the little plantations of Maverick and Blackstone. When he died, the house in which he closed his eyes stood in a thriving town, which had risen up in the wil derness in twenty years by the energy and determina tion of those Puritan Englishmen who had foUowed him and upheld his hands. Edward Johnson in his " Won der-working Providence " gives a description of Boston at the time of Winthrop's death which brings home to us more vividly than anything else the work which had been done : — " The chiefe Edifice of this City-like Towne is crowded on the Sea-hankes, and wliarfed out with great industry and cost, the buildings beautiful! and large, some fairely set forth with Brick Tile, Stone, and Slate, and orderly placed with comly streets, whose continuall inlargement presages some sumptuous City. . . But now behold the admirable Acts of Christ : at this his peoples landing, the hideous Thickets in this place were such that Wolfe's and Beares nurst up their The Defence of the Charter. 45 young from the eyes of all beholders, in those very places where the streets are full of Girles and Boys sporting up and downe, with a continued concourse of people. Good store of Shipping is here yearly built, and some very faire ones : both Tar and Mastes the Countrey affords from its own soile ; also store of Victuall both for their owne and Forreiners ships, who resort hither for that end ; this Town is the very Mart of the Land; French, Portugalls, and Dutch come hither for Traffique." The foundations of the future city had been well laid, and so had those of the Church and State, during the period when Winthrop had guided and formulated the policy of Massachusetts. The work which was then be gun under his wise leadership moved forward in things spiritual and political as well as in material affairs with out break or change. That which most concerns us during the ten years after Winthrop's death, when John Endicott held the reins of government, is the culmina tion of the struggle between the stern theocracy which had been established with so much care and the spirit of toleration and liberal thought which was rising up from the free schools and the democratic commonwealth. Eeference has already been made to the persecution of the Baptists, which was carried on for some years after Winthrop's death, and which resulted in failure. These Baptists, however, were much less difficult to deal with and much better able to win toleration than the people called Quakers, who succeeded them, and before whom the Puritan system of repression in reality broke down, althoucrh the fact of its defeat was not realized until the appearance of outside political forces made it painfully evident to all men. 46 Boston. This is not the place to enter into a detailed history of the Quaker persecution. It has been the fashion in these days to represent the case as if all the wrong were on one side, and all human sympathy should be with the Quakers. It seldom happens in any quarrel that all the wrong is on one side. Life would be much simpler if such were the case. In this instance wrong was largely on one side, but not entirely so. The Quakers, whom the world has known for the past two centuries as quiet, law-abiding, and benevolent citizens, were very different from those who came and set themselves up against the authorities of Massachusetts. These early agitators, apart from their religious doctrines, and considered solely from the secular standpoint, were offensive and disor derly persons, as unlike the seraphic beings of modern poetry and history as can well be imagined. Their cause was righteous, no doubt, but they were not by any means. Men and women who raised disturbances in the streets, went about without clothes, smearing their bodies with black, who denounced the civil magistrates and the law, who broke into the midst of peaceful con gregations, and indulged in every sort of indecent per formance, would in these days of enlightened liberality be placed in jail for disorderly and indecent conduct ; and the present generation would feel that they had been treated with absolute justice as law-breakers and disturbers of the peace. If the Puritans had treated the Quakers solely from the secular standpoint, made them keep order, and inflicted upon them nothing more than the usual pun ishments for infraction of the law, it would be very difficult to say that they had acted otherwise than as The Defence of the Charter. 47 sensible men. Unfortunately, they could never keep matters of conscience and opinion separate from overt acts ; aud that which offended the Puritan most was the fact that the " Eanters," as they called them, were not only disorderly persons but people who held reli gious views at variance with those of the State. Feel ing in this way, the Puritan authorities undertook to suppress the Quakers as religious fanatics instead of simply punishing them as disturbers of the peace. Even Eoger WUliams, the conventional champion of soul-liberty and of freedom of conscience, declared him self in favour of due and moderate restraint and punishment of the Quakers ; aud if the Puritans had kept themselves to this, all would have been well. Unluckily they went much further. They undertook to extirpate them ; and they adopted in so doing the repression to which they were accustomed, and used methods which were neither better nor worse in Mas sachusetts than the methods of punishment then in vogue everywhere. They imprisoned the Quakers, whipped them at the cart-tail from town to town, and banished them from the jurisdiction of the Com monwealth under pain of death, a system which on the whole had thus far proved fairly effective. This time, however, they were dealing with men and women so crazed by religious feeling that they were ready to meet even the last penalty in order to establish their faith. The Quakers came back from exile to find that the Puritans, whatever their faults, were men of their word. Between 1659 and 1661 three men and one woman were executed on Boston Common, where it is believed they still lie buried. It was with great diffi- 48 Boston. culty that a majority of the magistrates could be ob tained to carry out the threat that had been made ; and it may be doubted whether the policy would have pre vailed if it had not been for the unbending wiU of stern old Governor Endicott, who in his earlier days had cut the cross from the English flag as a symbol of idolatry. The victory in appearance rested with the magistrates, but in reality the Puritan system of a single church had broken down. Public opinion was so strongly excited by the execution of the Quakers that the policy it embodied could never again have been carried out thoroughly. It was the last victory of the theocratic system of the founders, and is of profound interest be cause it shows that system carried out to its logical conclusion, and failing in the end in the presence of the modern forces which were being generated by free schools and a free government. Even if the natural growth of public opinion, how ever, had not brought to an end the attempt to stifle religious differences by force, events in England would have done the work. New England had rejoiced at the rule of the great Protector, and had thriven under it undisturbed ; but Massachusetts had allowed even him to understand that she felt herself to be independent, and she made no acknowledgment of his son and successor. Yet at the very time, when the colony seemed most secure in its independence and most prosperous in its material welfare, when the Puritan theocracy, as it be lieved, was crushing heresy by the infliction of the last punishment which man can impose, changes were oc curring in England which were to turn the people of the Bay Colony from the work of putting down those The Defence of the Charter. 49 whom they esteemed heretics to a long and hopeless struggle to preserve the liberties which they had gained under their dearly-cherished charter. In 1660, Charles II. came back to his father's throne ; and the ship that brought the news of the Eestoration to Boston brought also the two regicides, Goffe and Whalley, fleeing from the wrath to come. Within a year the " Colonels," as they were caUed, who had been on their arrival the honoured guests of the State, were hiding in remote places with a price upon their heads, and Massachusetts heard that her former governor. Sir Henry Vane, and her great preacher, Hugh Peter, had died upon the scaffold. It was evident that this was a government which, unlike that of Eichard Cromwell, could not be passed over without some acknowledgment; and they therefore sent what they called a " congratulatory and lowly script," acknowledging Charles, and asking for his protection. Charles returned a gracious although vague reply to the address of the colony ; but despite the fair words, signs were not wanting to anxious observers in Massa chusetts that the home Government was planning to take a much more effective control of their affairs than they either Uked or expected. The Navigation Act of Cromwell, which had never been enforced against them under the Protectorate, was recommended by the Convention Parliament to be made more stringent and was put into active operation. Twelve privy councillors were also appointed to be a commission touching the settlement of New England. This was in May, 1661 ; and while the Government in England was thus gradu aUy turning its attention to the Puritan colonies, 4 50 Boston. the General Court of Massachusetts at the same time was appointing a committee of twelve to take into con sideration the present condition of affairs. This com mittee made a report in June, which set forth the rights of the colony under the charter, and secondly the duties of allegiance which the colonists owed the king. The clauses in this report " concerning our liberties '' were very definite and very broad, while those concerning allegiance were vague, and did not extend very far, a distinction not likely to escape observant and hostUe eyes. Having thus set forth their' own ideas of their rights and duties much as if they were entering a caveat, the Massachusetts Government, in August, 1661, pro claimed the king in Boston, fifteen months after his accession, — a delay which certainly did not indicate an over-hasty loyalty. The news which came to them, how ever, convinced them that more active steps should be taken to defend their rights in England than the reports of committees or tardy proclamations of the existence of the reigning king ; and after much deliberation Mr. Bradstreet and Mr. Norton left the colony in Feb ruary, 1662, as agents of the colony, to represent its interests in London. Yet at this very time, when agents were being sent with no little anxiety, the colony continued to exercise one of the highest attri butes of independent sovereignty, by continuing the coinage of money. Their deeds were by no means so submissive as their words. Nevertheless,, the agents were well received in England, and returned with a letter from the king, dated June 28, 1662. This letter was more gracious and liberal than the colonists ought to have expected; for Charles told the Massa- The Defence of the Charter. 51 chusetts Government that their address had been very acceptable ; that he received the colony into his gracious protection, confirmed their charter, and was ready to renew it ; and that he pardoned all subjects for offences against him, except persons attainted for high treason, — the exception referring to fugitive regicides. After such concessions and such apparent liberality, the king on his side demanded certain things which seemed very grievous to the Puritans of Massachusetts, who had been carrying on for so long an independent government. Charles directed that the oath of allegiance should be observed, and that the administration of justice should be in his name ; and as a feature of the charter was freedom of conscience, he charged that they should extend that freedom to all members of the Episcopal Church. He also directed that all freeholders of good character and orthodox in religion, though of different persuasions concerning church and government, should be allowed to vote. This last command struck of course at the very root of the Puritan system; and when the General Court met in October, 1662, the only thing they did was to direct that aU writs should run in the king's name, while at the next session, in May, 1663, they appointed a committee to consider the rest of the letter. The colonists were quite ready to go through all the forms of obedience ; but when it came to sub stantial concessions they grew straightway stubborn, and began to play the waiting game, which had always served them so well. Meanwhile the Committee of the Privy Council had begun to move; and in April, 1663, it was declared that his Majesty had determined to send new commissioners 52 Boston. to the colonies to preserve the charter of the Plantation, and to remove existing differences. The news that these men were coming as passengers on men-of-war, and accompanied by troops, reached Massachusetts in the spring of 1664. When the General Court met in May, it appointed Captains Oliver and Davis to go on board these ships as soon as they appeared, and to acquaint the commissioners that the officers and soldiers should be permitted to land only in small numbers, and unarmed. The Court also appointed a day of humiliation and prayer, gave the patent and its duplicate to certain per sons to be hidden in a safe aud secret place, ordered the trainbands to be put in readiness, and placed Captain Davenport in command of the castle in the harbour. Thus prepared, both spiritually and temporally, they awaited the coming of the ships. Two of the men-of-war reached Boston on the 23d of July, 1664, and the others followed. The fleet brought some four hundred troops for the reduction of the Dutch settlements and four com missioners, — Colonel Nichols, Sir Eobert Carr, Colonel Cartwright, and Mr. Maverick. These gentlemen bore the royal commission, which ordered them to reduce the Dutch of New York, to hear all trials of complaints against existing governments, aud to settle the peace and security of the country. Tliey also brought a letter from the king which gave a more detailed expression of the powers set out in the commission. The commissioners laid before the governor's council their commission and the king's letter, and asked for men to assist them in the reduction of New York, whither they went at once, after stating in broad terms that they would return later and hoped for a more The Defence of the Charter. 53 satisfactory answer than the king's missives had yet re ceived. When the General Court assembled in August they resolved that they would keep true faith and alle giance to his Majesty, and also would adhere to the patent. They gave two hundred men for service against the Dutch and then proceeded to consider the king's letter of 1662, which they had had before them for two years. By way of compUance with its requests they repealed the law which confined the franchise to church membership and replaced it by another, which gave a vote to those who, with certain other unimportant qualifications, could present a certificate from the min ister of the place where they lived that they were orthodox in reUgion. This was a change without a difference; and the practical effect of this new law was the same as the old, for it left the control of the franchise in the hands of the ministers. The only other thing that the Court did was to appoint a com mittee to draw up a petition to the king for the con tinuance of their chartered privileges. Thus the points of difference came out clearly through the mist of words in letters, reports, commissions, and proclama tions. The two parties were fairly arrayed against each other, and the attitude of the General Court was sufficiently unpromising to those who understood the temper of the people. The commissioners came back to Massachusetts in February, and proceeded thence to Plymouth, Ehode Island, and Connecticut, w^here they met with a recep tion or a submission which was satisfactory to them and to the king. By the following May they were once more in Boston, prepared for the last contest. 54 Boston. John Endicott, sternest and most unyielding of all the Puritan magistrates, had died, and had been succeeded by Eichard BeUingham ; but the policy of the colony was unchanged. When the opponents were at last fairly face to face there ensued a plentiful exchange of letters and much discussion, none of which tended to any results. After a good deal of irritation on both sides the commissioners decided to bring the conflict to a direct issue. They accordingly announced that they would hold a court, at which the colony was cited to appear as defendant, at the house of Captain Bridger, on Hanover Street, in Boston, at nine o'clock in the morning of May 24, 1665. The General Court of the colony was prepared for this move. At eight o'clock in the morning on the appointed day a messenger of the Court appeared in front of Captain Bridger's house, blew an alarm on his trumpet, and proclaimed in his Majesty's name and by authority of the royal charter that it regarded this action of the commissioners as a gross usurpation, which could not be countenanced or allowed. Then the messenger and trumpeter went to other parts of the little town and with simUar ceremony made the same proclamation. Thus it befell that when the commissioners assembled at nine o'clock on the same morning they found nobody either to hear them or to confer with, except Colonel Cartwright, who was iU with the gout in Captain Bridger's house, and who had had the pleasure of listening at an early hour to the trumpeter and the proclamation. So far as the commissioners were concerned the matter was at an end, for they had no force sufficient to cope with that of the colony. Accordingly they stated that they would The Defence of the Charter. 55 not lose more of their labours in so unpromising a field, and thereupon departed. In this first struggle with the Crown, Massachusetts triumphed; and having triumphed, the colonists pro ceeded to show their loyalty in their own way, by send ing provisions to the royal fleet in the West Indies and masts for the navy to England. Meantime chance favoured them. Other matters intervened, and another decisive struggle was not destined to come for some years. In the foUowing year a letter came from the king through Maverick, directing the Government to send four or five persons to attend upon his Majesty, which the General Court, with great humility, declined to do, and then proceeded to send out the gifts of pro visions and masts, which were much needed and well received. The first attempt of the government of the Eestoration to take control of Massachusetts had been scattered by the blast of the trumpeter of the General Court. 56 Boston. CHAPTEE IV. king PHILIP'S WAR, AND THE LOSS OF THE CHARTER. Thus the contest ended for the time, but it was only for the time, and owing to particular conditions. Eng land just then had other matters to think of than the New England colonies, and so for ten years the politi cal relations between Massachusetts and the mother country were almost nothing. StiU the contumacious colonies were never whoUy forgotten, for complaints were continuaUy made against them in regard to the violation of the Navigation Act, and Gorges and Mason continued to press their claims to the territory of Maine and New Hampshire, thus keeping alive the memory of the stubborn disobedience of the distant American Puri tans. FinaUy the Privy Council came to a decision in regard to the various complaints and suggestions, and once more entered upon an active policy in regard to New England. One Edward Eandolph, who was des tined to play an important part in Boston during the next few years, a tool of the Court, and possessed of much talent for spjdng and intrigue, was sent out as an agent to Massachusetts in March, 1673, with copies of the petitions and complaints of Mason and Gorges. He landed in Bqpton in June, 1676, to begin his work ; but the full meaning of his mission was hardly appro- King Philip's War. 57 ciated at the moment, for evil as his coming was, a worse, and a far more ferocious enemy than he could be was already upon the colony. Just a year before Eandolph's arrival, on the 21st of June, 1675, a messenger from Marshfield — a little town to the southward — had galloped into Boston bearing a letter from Governor Winslow of Plymouth to Governor Leverett. Since the thorough slaughter of the early days at the Pequot fort, in the language of the old chronicler, " the land had rested forty years ; " but this messenger riding through Boston streets in hot haste brought tidings that the long quiet was at last broken, and that the most desolating Indian war which the colony would ever know, had begun. Winslow had not asked for troops, but none the less the town was astir at once over the news, and knew well what it meant. The governor of Massachusetts at the time was John Leverett, who had been a Captain of Horse under Crom well aU through the great rebelUon ; and upon him and the Boston members of the councU the conduct of the war now devolved. Governor Leverett lived at the corner of what are now Court and Washington Streets, where stand to-day great buildings devoted to business, but which was then rather on the edge of the main body of the town. Here in those pleasant summer days of 1675, aU was bustle and commotion and preparation for war. Where stocks and bonds are now sold, and where a vast business involving millions is daily transacted, sturdy men gathered then with musket, pike, and sword to march forth into the wilderness to defend their homes. The volunteers were called out, and the trainbands were 58 Boston. ordered to be ready for a draft. The old CromweUian spirit which made the great Protector's soldiers feared throughout the world was still strong among the Ameri can Puritans, and both colony aud town showed them selves able to take the field with great promptness. The ill news had come on the 21st, and on the 26th two of the companies marched for Swansea, where the war had broken out. We get some idea of the charac ter of the men from a little incident that befell them when they reached the Neponset Eiver, at a point about twenty miles from Boston. At that moment there was a very complete eclipse of the moon ; aud some of the soldiers thought it of evil omen, and that the darkness on the disc looked like the figure of an ludian scout. Others, however, were reminded of what Crassus had said when the moon was eclipsed in Capricorn : " that he was much more afraid of Sagittarius than of Capri- cornus." Daniel Henchman, who had been a teacher in the Boston Latin School, commanded one of the two companies, and hence perhaps the classic remembrance, which is none the less a typical story. The army as a whole was in fact thoroughly representative of the people. The second generation had now grown up to do the fighting, while the older men who had led the people into the wilderness still formed the council and gave directions. The soldiers were fair examples of the community which they went forth to defend. The officers were the men of property and standing in the community, while the rank and file were the farmers, the mechanics, and the shopkeepers, well edu cated for those days, and deeply reUgious, but none the less able to march far and fight hard. They went to King Philip's War. 59 battle in discharge of their plain duty to Church and State, and they carried into the business of war the same grim determination and relentless thoroughness which they showed in all the affairs of life. The Uttle army reached Swansea by forced marches iu forty-eight hours, and destroyed the village and wig wam of King PhUip, as they called the leader of the In dians ; but the great chief himself unluckily escaped. They then made a treaty with the Narragansett tribe, and soon after returned to Boston, while the war drifted away from the south to the towns on the more western frontier. Boston itseli was too distant from the scene of war to suffer from a direct attack ; but it was the centre from which troops went out, the spot where the forces were organized, and where all the con flicting rumours came. These rumours were generally terrible, but they were hardly worse than the truth. One village after another was surprised and burned ; the men were slaughtered, and the women and chil dren carried off into captivity. More than once the troops were caught in a deadly ambush, and " Bloody Brook " still retains in its name the memory of a fight where the "Flower of Essex," as the company was called, lost fifty-nine men. To Boston also were brought the prisoners, and there many of the Indians whom the magistrates esteemed guilty were put to death on the gaUows. The war assumed such proportions during the summer that the colonists soon found they were fighting for life. The powerful Narragansetts broke their treaty; a thousand men were raised on the first call for troops, and on the 13th of December, 1676, the colonists stormed the Narragansett fort, and after 6o Boston. a severe loss took it, and finally broke the power of that formidable tribe. Thus the struggle rolled on, with massacres and ambuscades and much fierce fighting on the frontier, and with days of fasting and prayer, and much raising of men for the army in Boston. At last the colonists prevailed. On the 29th of June, 1677, therp was a public thanksgiving for the victories ; and on the 12th of August, Philip, the Wampanoag chief and the author of the war, was at last overtaken and slain. With a population of about twenty-five thousand, Massachusetts had lost in battle during the war from five hundred to six hundred of her fighting-men, of whom over one hundred, including four captains, were from Boston, and of the heavy taxation made necessary by the war, Boston had borne a third. It was in the midst of this struggle, when the colonists were fighting for life and for the preservation of English supremacy, that Eandolph arrived to begin the second attack upon the charter. The time selected and the man chosen for the work were both characteristic of the Stuart govern ment, a happy combination of mean heartlessness and treacherous intrigue. There was no ray of sympathy in Eandolph for his countrymen engaged in a desperate war, but he was a good deal impressed by the appearance of their troops, of which he wrote, — "Each troop [of horse] consists of sixty horse besides ofi&cers ; and they are well mounted and completely armed with back, breast, and headpiece, buff-coat, sword, carbine, and pistols, each troop distinguished by their coats. The foot also are very well furnished with swords, muskets, and King Philip s War. 6i bandoleers. The late wars have hardened their infantry, made them good firemen, and taught them the ready use of their arms." The Puritans of New England like their brethren in England were a fighting people, and were true to the traditions of Cromwell; but although this savage war had given them an effective army, the loss of men and the burden of taxation had weakened their capacity for resistance to the attacks of the Crown. The times were unfortunately ripe for such work as Eandolph was set to do. His first visit however was a short one. He laid before the magistrates the king's letter of March 10, 1676, and copies of the complaints of Mason and Gorges, informing them that an answer must, be sent in a month. Then after prowling about among the New Hampshire towns to gather up all the complaints he could scrape together against the Massachusetts government, he sailed for England on the 30th of July. The people held a meeting on the 9th of August, drew up a brief declaration as to their rights, and sent Messrs. Stoughton and Bulkeley as agents to England to plead their cause. When the agents arrived they found that Eandolph had been at work, and that the minds of the persons in authority were already preju diced against them. The chief-justice declared that Massachusetts had no claim to either Maine or New Hampshirg, and that the grant of Maine belonged to the heirs of Ferdinando Gorges. With prompt shrewd ness the colony bought up the Gorges rights to Maine for £1,200 ; but although this bold step saved to them a vast territory, it prejudiced them more than ever in the 62 Boston. eyes of the king. The rights to New Hampshire they unfortunately were unable to buy from Mason. It is not worth while \a follow the details of the struggle which now ensued. The conditions which had enabled Massachusetts to make a successful resistance to English power in the days of Charles I., and again thirty years later, had greatly changed. The colony it self was weakened by the war and the consequent bur den of taxation. With these misfortunes alone they might have struggled on, but they now had in addition a determined enemy who never allowed the attack upon them to slumber, and they were also divided among themselves, which was in reality more fatal than any thing else. It is not very easy now to understand the character and motives of Eandolph, to whom more than to anybody else was due the downfall of the charter. He appears to have been a ready tool of the English Gov ernment, and was sent out to look into the affairs of the colony probably for the sake of giving him some employ ment. But in so doing he pursued the Massachusetts people with a venomous hostility and a tenacity of pur pose which it is now difficult to comprehend. It seems as if some personal grievance must have spurred him on to the execution of his official duties in a manner which was something more than zealous. Whether his recep tion had been of a kind to arouse his personal animos ity, or whether he had private wrongs to redress, does not appear; but there can be no doubt of the vigour with which he pursued the attack. In nine years he made uo less than eight voyages to New England, no slight undertaking in those days of small vessels and of long and stormy passages. He came out the second King Philip's War. 63 time as Collector of Customs, and proceeded to seize vessels; but the juries refused to condemn them, and he himself was cast in damages. Then came another voyage to England, some more complaints, and further pressing demands from the Crown. In Massachusetts, and in her outlying territories also, Eandolph did what no previous enemy of the colony had ever thought of doing, by labouring to build up a party in favour of the Crown and opposed to the charter government. In this project he succeeded in no slight measure, for the old unity of resistance to any power which threatened the independence of the Puritan State had departed. The ancient spirit which made the colony iu its earliest and weakest days ready to face the power of England, and if beaten to retreat into the wilderness, had died down. Business prosperity had raised up a class of men who had accumulated property, and who therefore feared disorder, or anything which seemed likely to dis turb the existing state of things. This party of timidity and moderation, although not strong in numbers, had weight in other ways, and was led not only by worthy persons Uke Bradstreet and Stoughton, but by schemers like Joseph Dudley, who saw prospects of personal ad vancement in loyalty to the Crown, and who were quite destitute of the fervid faith which had founded the settlement in the wilderness, and to which relenting or compromise was impossible. The great body of tbe people were true to the charter, and were ready for extreme measures ; but although strong in numbers they were weaker than their opponents in position and wealth, as well as in the arts of political management. The result was that the struggle soon became an un- 64 Boston. equal one. On the one side was a determined enemy, pushing steadily forward toward a single object ; on the other, a policy fluctuating between a general lack of energy and an occasional decided but often ill-advised resistance. GraduaUy, however, one point after another was yielded ; and as the colonies fell back, the demands of the Crown advanced. The Puritans nevertheless al though ready fighters were by no means bad negotia tors. They understood fully the value of delay ; and their clumsy rhetoric and long-drawn petitions and ap-- peals which seemed to concede much and really gave up very little, were all well calculated to spin out the time and take advantage of the chapter of accidents which had favoured them so signally in the past. Thus arguing, and yielding inch by inch, they man aged to put off the dreaded fate for nearly nine years ; but at last the blow feU. On June 18, 1684, the Court of Chancery made a decree vacating the charter, and giv ing the defendants till the next term to appear. They appeared accordingly at that term, and asked for time to appear to plead; but the Lord Keeper refused the motion, and finally judgment was entered. When the decree was known in Massachusetts in January, 1685, the General Court ordered a day of fasting and prayer, and made an address to the king ; but all men felt that the old system had received its death-blow. The ma chine of government moved on mechanically for another year; and then while the last General Court elected under the charter was still in session, a frigate arrived bearing Eandolph and a commission for the officers of a new provisional government, in which Joseph Dudley was to be President. The General Court made a reply King Philip's War. 65 to this commission, and then adjourned to the second Wednesday in October, never to meet again under the provisions of the old charter. Under the government which thus came to an end in the summer of 1686, and which represented so much suffering, so much faith, and so much courage, Boston had grown from a scattered settlement on the edge of the wilderness to be a thriving and weU-built town. At that time it contained about six thousand inhabi tants, the houses were principally of wood, but many were of brick or stone, and in some instances the mate rial had been brought from England. It was distinctly an English town. The migration had been an unmixed one ; and although the people had left their native coun try on account of religious differences, they had brought with them aU their habits, customs,, and modes of thought, which they had inherited from their ancestors, and to which they were profoundly attached. The names which they gave to their counties and towns and even to the streets were English names, taken from well-beloved places which they had left. They planted English fruits and English flowers in their gardens, they filled their houses with English furniture aud buUt them in the style of English domestic archi tecture ; and yet, although in these ways they manifested their attachment to the homes which they had left, in matters more essential than houses and clothes and furniture they showed that the spirit of a new country was upon them, and that they were seeking to lay the foundation of a new nation among the people of the earth. The town of Boston was governed by the town 5 66 Boston. meeting, which has been compared with the "Folk- moot" of the early English, where all the people met to consider the matters which concerned the municipality. It was here that the lessons in self- government were learned which prepared the way for the great democracy destined to grow up from these feeble colonies. In the same way the government of the State was one which the Puritans had de veloped to suit their own theories. It was harsh and intolerant in religious matters ; it was broad and Uberal in the line of politics and popular education. It sent constables into the inns to stop men drinking ; it punished those who failed in attending churches ; it regulated what the men and women should wear ; but it threw open the doors of the schoolhouse to every child, and even when hastening to its fall dared to tell Charles II. that it could not submit to the Navigation laws, because the colonies were not represented in the Parliament of the nation. Their legislation was-pevere, but the Puritans were never troubled if au}'^ one ob jected that their laws were sumptuary laws. They believed it to be the first duty of man to worship God and lead a moral life, and they thought that govern ment was instituted to see that this was done. The government thus formed and founded had its de fects, but it was at least strong and successful. The Puritan State rose steadily from the day that Winthrop landed, without any of the checks which had marked the growth of the other American settlements, and showed a fixity of purpose which did not recognize defeat. The government partook in every way of the spirit of the men who established it, and its laws bore King Philip's War. 67 in every line the imprint of their stern will and rigid conviction. The Puritan was not only deeply religious, but he was also effective in the affairs of this world. He prayed long and fervently, he fasted often, and hu miliated himself before the Lord many days in the year; but at the same time he sowed and planted and reaped. He cleared the forests, defeated the savages, built ships, and pushed his farms and villages ever further and fur ther into the wilderness. Of all this eager life, Boston was the centre ; and when Increase Mather described the town, he enumerated as many trades flourishing there as could be found in any English city. The people lived well, according to the ideas of those days. All food supplies were cheap and plentiful, and game abounded. The dweUings were substantial ; but their owners must have suffered severely from the cold in houses which had no appliances sufficient to cope with the rigours of a New England winter. The weak and sickly had but a slight chance for Ufe, and the law of the survival of the fittest was terribly enforced by natural conditions. The only intellectual interest was found in religion, and in a creed of the most gloomy kind. On this they spent their mental energy with much solemn gratification to them selves and a good deal of discomfort to those who hap pened to differ from them. There were no amusements, and the literary movement which was soon to enter on a period of great activity had hardly got beyond an ac count of the country or the publication of a tract or occa sional sermon. The love of learning was kept alive by the clergy and the coUege, and the people were educated and intelligent. But the supply of books was meagre, and the opportunities- for reading or study, outside 68 Boston. of religion and theology, were limited in the extreme. The people of Boston practically went from work to re ligion and from religion to work without anything to break the monotony, except trouble with England and wars with the savages. It was a simple, hard-working community, where there were no poor and few rich peo ple. They were vigorous and self-reliant ; they had pros pered in worldly matters, and they had built up a goodly town ; they had laid the foundation of popular education and democratic government ; and they had tried under these conditions to make the Church and State one. Even when they had everything under absolute control, they had failed in their efforts to suppress freedom of reli gious belief. Now the charter, under which they had enjoyed power and exercised independence, was taken from them ; and with sorrowful thoughts and many grievous forebodings the people of Boston entered on the second stage of their history, in which they were to be no longer a law unto themselves, but were to work out their theories and their destiny under new and widely different conditions. Under the Crown. 69 CHAPTEE V. UNDER THE CROWN. The temporary government which took control after the loss of the charter was headed by Joseph Dudley, who had already begun to find his reward in adhering to the Crown, and who was managed and directed by Eandolph. Beyond celebrating the birthdays of the king and queen, the new government marked its ad vent by only one important act, — they granted to Episcopalians the right to hold services in the east end of the Town House. At the same time. Judge SewaU — " Samuel Sewall the good and wise," the Puritan Pepys, as he has been called, — notes in his diary on the 5th of August, " WiUiam Harrison is buried, which is the first I know of buried with the common prayer book in Boston." On the 8th of August, he writes, " Sab bath day. 'Tis s* ye Sacramt. of ye Lord's Super is administered at ye Town. H. Cleverly there." A month later he notes that " David Jeffries and Betty Usher were married by the church service." These were only forms and ceremonies, but they were never theless the outward marks of a very vital change as weU as of the coming of an outside power, and they sank deeply into the hearts of the colonists, who re garded them with grim dislike. Dudley's presidency however was of short duration; for on the 19th of 70 Boston. December, 1686, the frigate "Kingfisher" saUed into the harbour, bringing the new governor, Sir Edmund Andros. Andros was a gentleman of good family, and warmly attached to the Stuarts. He had served in the army with distinction, had married a lady of rank, and for three years had been governor of New York. There he had ruled very successfully in the interests of the Duke of York ; and when James came to the throne, he very naturally turned to Andros as a person well fitted, both by his experience and his zealous personal loyalty, for the government of the New England colonies. For many generations, so vigorous is the life of political tradition, Andros has been held up in New England history as a typical example of a cruel tyrant and a fit representa tive of a bigoted and despotic master. There does not seem to have been any better ground for this view than the bitter and natural hostility of a people who had been deprived of their independence, and whose religious prejudices had been wounded by the political change which he happened to represent. Andros was not only a man of good character and standing, but he seems to have been personally above reproach, and to have in dulged in no petty oppression. The opposition to his government was perfectly sound, but it rested in reality on political and not on personal grounds. Andros was a good administrator, who served a stupid and oppres sive king ; and his policy, which was necessarily that of the Crown, was in consequence stupid and oppressive too, and could not have been better designed to raise a revolt in Massachusetts, if such had been its set purpose. The governor contrived by two acts to rouse against him- Under the Crown. 71 self and his government every element of opposition among the colonists when it was perfectly possible for him to have divided instead of uniting them, and to have built up a strong body of supporters. It was undoubtedly true that the great mass of the people, especiaUy in the country, were profoundly de pressed at the loss of the charter, and regarded the new government with feelings of aversion and alarm, but it was equally true that there were many others who were by no means unrelenting in their opposition to the Crown. The strength of this latter party was of course to be found in Boston. It was composed in small part of those who found a direct interest in ally ing themselves with English rule, and of the float ing population of a seaport where soldiers, sailors, and traders came in search of money and adventure. In a larger and much more important proportion it was made up of the rich and timid class of Puritans, who feared disturbance, and who had chafed perhaps under the severity of the old rule, but who at the same time were wedded to their religion and to their political habits. It was obviously for the interest of the Crown and of its representatives that the people who were well in clined toward the government should be encouraged and increased in numbers; but Andros proceeded first to assaU the reUgious sensibilities of the community, and then to strike contemptuously at its property, thus forcing men of all shades of feeling to make common cause against his government. The most distinguishing outward mark of the religious system of the Puritans was that they combined with an immense amount of reUgious devotion a total ab- 72 Boston. sence of outward ceremonial. When John Endicott cut the cross from the flag because it savoured of idola try, he gave living expression to one of the most fervent beliefs of the Puritan heart. Forms and ceremonies, symbols and signs, were to them marks of the Beast. They attached to them a meaning and importance which it is hard for us in these days to realize ; and they car ried out their hatred of form to the last point. They prayed and preached at greater length and with more fervour than perhaps any people in the world ; but they did it as the spirit moved, and not on the lines laid down by any man's mass-book or liturgy. During the years of their independence they had given full scope to their feelings in this respect. Their church govern ment was democratic and independent, and their church services were stripped of all forms and decorations. They made marriage a purely civil contract, they wiped from their calendar all the church festivals and holi days ; and when death came to a household, they took their dead from the home to the grave and laid them in the earth in silence. To such a people, wedded to such customs, it was a cruel shock to have a priest in a surplice conducting an English service in their Town House. To see men buried according to the prayer- book, and to behold marriages solemnized by the rites of the English Church, were sights which from their novelty may have interested the floating population . of the little capital, who were undoubtedly entertained by the celebrations of royal anniversaries and by the re-appearance of old sports upon certain holidays. But if these things made the curious wonder, they made the judicious grieve. Such men as Samuel Sewall, Under the Crown. 73 the type of a class of well-to-do Puritans, moderate in their views, and more than ready to be submis sive to the new Government, were wounded in their tenderest spot by these performances. The old diarist notes again and again with ill-concealed exultation that the people refused to observe Christmas and other holidays, but kept the shops open, brought fire-wood into the town, and went on with their business as in the old days. On the "Sabbath, Feb. 6, 168f," he writes : — "Between \ hour after 11 and \ hour after 12 at Noon many Scores of great guns fired at the Castle and Tower suppose upon account of the King's entering on the third year of his Eeign. . . . This day the Lord's Super was adminis tered at the middle and North Church ; the ratling of the Guns during almost aU the time gave them great disturbance. 'T was never so in Boston before." Again he says, on "Feb. 15, 168f, Jos. Maylem carries a Cock at his back with a bell in 's hand, in the Main Street ; several followed him blindfold, and under pretence of striking him or 's cock, with great Cart-whips strike passengers and make great dis turbance." No better instances than these apparently trivial circumstances here marked down by Sewall, could be found to illustrate the judicious combination by which the new government contrived to make itself hateful to the colonists, and to inflame every possible prejudice against the king and his representatives. " The clamorous report of war " noisily reminding them of the coming of an outside rule, and of the loss 74 Boston. of their independence, was bad enough. But in ad dition, it must needs com.e on the Sabbath, desecrating the day kept with such intense severity, drowning even the voice of prayer in the most solemn service, and thus outraging the keenest sensibilities of a deeply religious people. The horse-play with the boy and the cock again was the celebration of Shrove-Tuesday, and seemed to smack of Papacy and the hated days of Laud. It was all innovation, and innovation of a peculiarly distasteful kind. Andros, however, was by no means content with what had been done by the provisional government. He intended not only to mark tlie existence of his power by outward show and to celebrate every royal festival and church cere mony with such pomp as was possible, but he was determined that the service of the Church of Eng land should be conducted in a church and not in a corner of the Town House. We can turn to Sewall's diary and hear the story told by one who saw it all and felt it deeply. "Monday, Decembr 20, 1686. Gov. Andros comes up in ye Pinace . . . " . . .it seems speaks to ye Ministers in ye Library abt accommodation as to a Meeting-house, yt might so contrive ye time as one House might serve two Assemblies. " Tuesday Deer. 21. There is a Meeting at Mr. Allen's of ye Ministers, and four of each Congregation to consider what answer to give ye Govr ; and 't was agreed yt could n't with a good Conscience consent yt our Meeting-House should be made use of for ye Comon-prayr worship. " Deer. 22. . . . In ye Evening Mr. Mather and Mr. Wil lard thorowly discoursed his Excellency about ye Meeting- Under the Crown. 75 Houses in great plainess, shewing they could not consent : This was at his Lodging at Madam Taylor's ; He seems to say wUl not impose. " Friday, Xr 24. About 60 Red-coats are brought to Town. . . . " Satterday, Xr 25. Govr. goes to ye Town-House to service Forenoon and afternoon, a Redcoat going on 's right hand and Capt. George on ye left. Was not at Lecture on Thorsday. Shops open to-day generally and persons about yr occasions. Some but few Carts at Town with wood thou ye day exceeding fair and pleasant. Read iu ye morn ye 46 and 47 of Isa." "(1686-7). Tuesday, January 25. This day is kept for St. Paul and ye Bell was rung in ye Morning to call persons to service ; The Govr (I am told) was there. " Monday, January 31. There is a Meeting at ye Town house forenoon and afternoon. Bell rung for it ; respecting ye beheading Charles ye first. Govr there." " Tuesday, March 22, 168f. This day his excellency views the three Meeting houses. Wednesday, March 23. — The Govr sends Mr. Randolph for ye keys of our Meetingh. yt may say Prayers there. Mr. Eliot, Frary, Oliver, Savage, Davis, and my self wait on his Excellency ; shew that ye Land and House is ours, and that we can't consent to part with it to such use ; exhibit au extract of Mrs. Norton's Deed and How 't was built by particular persons as Hull, Oliver, 100£ a piece, &c. "Friday, March 25, 1687. The Govr has service in ye South Meetinghouse ; Goodm. Needham (the Sexton) tho' had resolv'd to ye Contrary, was prevail'd upon to Ring ye Bell and open ye door at ye Governour's Coinand, one Smith and Hill, Joiner and Shoemaker, being very busy about it. Mr Jno. Usher was there, whether at ye very begining, or no, I can't tell." "j^ Boston. "Monday, May 16, 1687. This day Capt. Hamilton buried with Capt. Nicholson's Redcoats and ye 8 Companies : Was a funeral-sermon preached by ye Fisher's Chaplain : Pulpit cover'd with black cloath upon wch scutcheons : Mr. Dudley, Stoughton and many others at ye Comon Prayer, and Sermon : House very full, and yet ye Souldiers went not in." "Feb. 10, 168|. Between 4 and 5, I went to ye Funeral of ye Lady Andros having been invited p ye Clark of ye South-Company. Between 7. and 8. (Lychus illuminating ye cloudy air) The Corps was carried into the Herse drawn by six Horses. The Souldiers making a Guard from ye Governour's House down ye Prison Lane to ye Sonth-M. House, there taken out and carried in at ye western dore, and set in ye Alley before ye pulpit with six Mourning women by it. House made light with candles and Torches ; was a great noise and clamor to keep people out of ye House, yt might not rush in too soon. I went home, where about nine a clock I heard ye Bell toll again for ye Funeral. It seems Mr. Eatcliff's Text was. Cry, all flesh is Grass. The Ministers turned in to Mr. Willard's. The Meeting House full, among whom Mr. Dudley, Stoughton, Gedney, Brad- street,&c. On Satterday, Feb. 11, ye mourning cloth of ye Pulpit is taken off and given to Mr. Willard. My Bror. Stephen was at ye Funeral, and lodged here." It must be remembered that the writer of this ac count was not merely a contemporary but a thoroughly representative man of the most influential and moder ate part of the community. Sewall and men like hira, who were more than ready to be on good terms with those in authority, were hurt and wounded by the forms and ceremonies of the English Church, so hastUy Under the Crown. "jy introduced and so conspicuously displayed. They were not only hurt but bitterly offended, when Andros, going beyond the outward observances of his creed, actually seized one of their own churches, in order to hold there a service which was little less obnoxious to the great body of the community than a Eoman Catholic mass. Three years later an Episcopal church, the King's Chapel, was built on the spot where it StiU stands, but nothing could undo the effect of the seizure of the Old South Meeting and the performance there on each Sunday of the English service. By these acts Andros not only put an affront upon the clergy, the most powerful class in New England, but he alienated from his Government every Puritan, no matter how liberal or friendly or weU inclined he might have been. The other branch of his policy touched the people in a wholly different way, but on an equally sensitive point, for it menaced their property. In March, 1687, he and his council passed an act for levying taxes, and constituted the selectmen in every town and a commis sioner, elected for the purpose, local tax commissioners, who were to furnish a schedule of persons and estates. This was received with much suUen opposition, which finally broke out in the town of Ipswich, where the people refused to pay the taxes because they were not levied by the General Assembly. These contumacious persons were tried on the 20th of October by a court composed of the governor's adherents, and were promptly convicted and fined. Not content with this, Andros, who does not seem to have been the person responsible for this scheme of taxation, went a step further, and ad- 78 Boston. vanced the theory that the Crown owned the fee to all the land, and that the existing owners must have their titles confirmed by the Crown. The friends of the new establishment obtained speedy confirmation of their titles on very easy terms, but it looked as if there was opened to the less pliant a wide prospect of extortion and loss of money. Thus Andros, by these two branches of his policy, drove into united resistance everybody who cared for the religion of their ancestors and every man who had property to lose. No better preparation could have been made for a successful revolution, and the outbreak was not long in coming. Andros was frequently called away during his ad ministration by the affairs of his extensive government, and also by the Indian troubles to the eastward. He returned from one of these expeditions in March, 16^9 ; and soon after, on April 4, John Winslow arrived in Boston, bearing copies of the proclamation which had been issued by William of Orange on his landing in England. Not more than a spark was needed to fire the train prepared by the injudicious measures of the Andros Government ; and this proclamation was a blaz ing torch, which of itself was enough to Ught the flames of insurrection. It had at once the important effect of rallying the upper classes and the ojd leaders to an open movement against the Government ; but it is pretty evident that even this slight outside impulse was not needed among the people at large. They were ready to take their lives in their hands and defy all the power of England, rathei than submit longer to a gov ernment which meant, as they had come to beUeve, the overthrow of their religion and the destruction Under the Crown 79 of all their hard-earned property and dearly-bought rights. During the fortnight which followed the arrival of Winslow, Andros wrote that there was " a general buzz ing among the people ; " and on the 18th of April he found out what the buzzing meant. On that day, at eight in the morning, it was reported at the South End of Boston that the people were in arms at the North End ; and a like report was spread at the North End re specting the South. Thereupon the people rose. They seized the captain of the British frigate, beat the drums, and set up an ensign on Beacon Hill. The old leaders of the popular party came forth and made their way to the Council House, where from the gallery they read WiUiam's declaration to the people ; and in the mean time the immediate followers of Andros were seized and thrown into prison. The declaration read, they sent to Andros, announced that his authority was at an end, and demanded that he deliver himself up, which he refused to do. By two o'clock, however, not only the people of the town were in arms, but the soldiers from the country were pouring in in great numbers. Hear ing that Andros was trying to escape to the frigate, they seized the boat and prevented his escape. They then surrounded the fort and again demanded his sur render. This time he gave way, and with his friends was marched to the Council House, and the next day was confined in the fort. The gentlemen who had taken charge of the movement immediately called a convention, at which it was held that the old govern ment was in force, and Bradstreet and the council of 1686 thereupon returned to office. On May 26 they 8o Boston. proclaimed William and Mary, and in December re ceived orders to administer the govemment until other wise directed. Orders also came to send Andros and his friends to England, whither they departed in February, 1690. No more bloodless and effective revolution was ever carried out. It was the first forcible resistance by the people of Massachusetts to the Crown, which, after fifty years of independence, had stepped in and deprived them of their charter. But although it was the first, it was by no means the last ; and the contest thus begun was continued in various forms until the colonies finally separated forever from the mother country. It was a very characteristic and law-abiding revolution, this ris ing against Andros, and shows not only the temper of the people but also their perfect union when the rights which they considered essential were attacked. The colonists however had at an earlier date taken steps to seek relief in England, not anticipating such a speedy culmination of the conflict as actually oc curred. In April, 1688, the Eev. Increase Mather had slipped away to England to represent before the king the cause of the people against Andros. He reached England in May, 1688, just when the seven bishops had signed the petition requesting the king to dispense with the reading and distribution of the declaration of indul gence, for which the people of New England not un derstanding its purport or policy had sent their loyal thanks. Increase Mather was the ablest member of the most remarkable clerical family produced in colonial Massa chusetts. He was a man of learning, with great force Under the Crown 8i of will, determined and combative, and devoted to the interests of New England, as he understood them. He had much of the fighting Puritan in him, but also had quaUties which were found in large measure among some of the elder Puritans, and which still occur among their descendants. Eigid as he was in defence of his beliefs, he was at the same time both astute and adroit, with a natural genius for diplomacy and politics. He was inclined on his arrival to accept the declaration of indulgence, upon which the English dissenters were divided; and he had an audience with the king, who gave him a gracious reception. After this favourable beginning he sought first to check the progress of Episcopacy, and then to settle the land-titles in Massa chusetts. For this purpose he judiciously made friends among those who were near to James, with prudent toleration including among them such very different persons as WiUiam Penn, Lord Sunderland, Jeffries, and even Father Petre. He wrote also a pamphlet about New England, and had further interviews with the king ; but although he received plenty of promises, he obtained nothing more, and his demands sank as his hopes faded. A great change however was at hand. In November, 1688, William was at Torbay; and in February, 1689, William and Mary were proclaimed. No one trimmed his sails more quickly to the fresh breeze than the shrewd New England minister. Mather made friends with the new sovereign as rapidly as with the old, and much more effectively. It looked at first as if he would be able to obtain the first charter ; but the delays which ensued gave time for all the enemies of the old system to show themselves, and also for tbe 6 82 Boston. arrival of Andros. Then Mather found himself in volved in many bitter controversies, which he waged with great ability both with tongue and pen ; but al though the king continued to be favourable, he had no mind to set up an independent government in one of his provinces. Mather failed therefore to get the old charter, but he succeeded by quite a dexterous effort in separating New England from the other colonies ; and he secured a new charter much more liberal than that granted tq any other colony. He could not prevent the provision for a royal governor with a veto power; but he succeeded in annexing the territories of Nova Scotia, Maine, and Plymouth to Massachusetts, and in having all the grants made by the General Court con firmed. He also succeeded, when the charter had been signed, in practically picking out the governor. His choice fell upon Sir William Phipps ; and thus equipped with his new charter and his new governor, Mather sailed for Massachusetts in March, 1692. Under all the circumstances, and considering the weakness of his posi tion as the representative of a subject colony, it was a great triumph of diplomacy, in which subtlety and audacity mingled in nearly equal proportions. It was a fit forerunner of the triumph of that far greater New England diplomat, who nearly one hundred years later secured the alliance of France, and set his name to the treaty which forever separated England from her colonies. Under the Province Charter. 83 CHAPTEE VI. UNDER THE PROVINCE CHARTER. The man whom Increase Mather brought with him to be the first in the line of royal governors of Mas sachusetts was more interesting personally, than as a statesman. Born in the woods of Maine, one of a famUy of twenty-six children, and left to pick up his living as best he might, WiUiam Phipps had worked his way up from being a shipwright and seaman, until a wUd adventure gave him a fortune enormous for those days. He had come to Boston in 1673, worked at his trade there, and learned to read and write, — a new ac complishment to him, although he was then twenty- two years old. For some time he struggled along in comparative poverty, sailing on various ships, and tak ing part in expeditions against the Indians. On one of his voyages he heard of a Spanish treasure-ship which was sunk in the waters of the Spanish main. Thereupon he went to London, young and unknown as he was, in 1684, and managed to so plead his cause that James II. gave him an eighteen-gun ship and ninety-five men. With this outfit he made a two years' cruise in the West Indies, but all he obtained was the knowledge of the precise spot where the treasure-ship had foundered nearly half a century be fore. He then returned to England for fresh aid, aud 84 Boston. managed to obtain another vessel, which was furnished him by the Duke of Albemarle and other courtiers, on shares. This time he succeeded. He found the sunken galleon, raised bullion from it to the value of £300,000, together with precious stones, and for his own share received £20,000, and was made a knight. He came back with Andros as high sheriff, an office in which he did not distinguish himself, as he knew nothing of law, and could not write plainly. He then made another voyage to England, came back again to Boston, where he built for his wife the " fair brick house " which he had promised her in the days of her pov erty, and led a successful expedition against Acadia, where he took and plundered Port Eoyal and some other of the French settlements. He then undertook an expedition against Quebec, in which he failed dis astrously. Again he returned to England, and again he came out, this time as governor. His administra tion, which was a short one, — lasting only two years and a half, — was more picturesque than important. He visited his old comrades the ship-carpenters, joined the church, to the edification of all good citizens, quarrelled with the other officers of the government, and wound up by knocking down the captain of a British frigate in the streets, and thrashing the royal collector of customs, with much consequent loss of dignity. The result of all these doings was that he was summoned to England in 1694, and died there a few months after his arrival, in February, 1695. The most marked event of Phipps's administration was the outbreak of the famous witchcraft troubles, for which he constituted, with a fine neglect of legal nice- Under the Province Charter. 85 ties, a special court. There is no need in the history of Boston to enter into any detailed account of this hideous epidemic of superstition and panic which raged for months in the colony, and which is known to us as the witchcraft delusion. Prior to this, and at different times, two or three witches had been executed there in conformity with the brutal law and stolid superstition which then existed on the subject. About these early cases it is not necessary to say anything. They, re sembled hundreds of similar instances then occurring in England. But not long before the great outbreak at Salem, there occurred in Boston the somewhat notorious affair of the Goodwin children, who were the special care of Cotton Mather, and whose case deserves fuller consideration than those which preceded it. The best condensed account is that given by Governor Hutchinson in his history of Massachusetts, which is quoted by Mr. Poole in the Memorial History of Boston : — " In 1687 or 1688 began a more alarming instance than any that had preceded it. Four of the children of John Good win, a grave man and good liver at the north part of Boston, were generally believed to be bewitched. I have often heard persons who were in the neighbourhood speak of the great consternation it occasioned. The children were all remark able for ingenuity of temper, had been religiously educated, were thought to be without guile. The eldest was a girl of thirteen or fourteen years. She had charged a laundress with taking away some of the family linen. The mother of the laundress was one of the wild Irish, of bad character, and gave the girl harsh language ; soon after which she fell into fits which were said to have something diabolical in 86 Boston. them. One of her sisters and two brothers followed her ex ample, and, it is said, were tormented in the same part of their bodies at the same time, although kept in separate apart ments and ignorant of one another's complaints. . . . Some times they would be deaf, then dumb, then blind ; and sometimes all these disorders together would come upon them. Their tongues would be drawn down their throats, then pulled out upon their chins. Their jaws, necks, shoulders, elbows, and all their joints would appear to be dislocated, and they would make the most piteous outcries of burnings, of being cut with knives, beat, etc., and the marks of wounds were afterwards to be seen. The ministers of Boston and Charlestown kept a day of fasting and prayer at the troubled house ; after which the youngest child made no more complaints. The others persevered, and the magis trates then interposed, and the old woman was apprehended ; but upon examination would neither confess nor deny, and appeared to be disordered in her senses. Upon the report of physicians that she was compos mentis, she was exe cuted, declaring at her death the children should not be relieved." This case derives its peculiar interest from Cotton Mather, who embalmed it among the countless books of which he was the author, and who engaged in many con troversies over it, as he did over most things with which he was concerned. Cotton Mather was the son of Increase Mather, and in his way was quite as distin guished a man as his father. He is perhaps the most prolific writer that Massachusetts has ever produced, and his works, however small their literary merit, are of inestimable value to the student of history and char acter. He took a profound interest in the case of the Goodwin children, visited in prison the unfortunate Under the Province Charter. 87 woman Glover, who was condemned for bewitching them, and endeavoured by prayer and religious services to restore her victims to health. It being decided that the woman was compos mentis she was executed, as we have seen by the extract from Hutchinson. The children, after performing feats which much resembled those of modern spiritualism, finally returned to their natural state, grew up, professed religion, Uved appar ently sober and respectable lives, and so far as we know never made any confession of fraud in regard to their early experience. Mather in dealing with the case adopted a settled policy. He believed that the victims of witchcraft could be saved by prayer, and he was also of the opinion apparently that accusations should not be multiplied, but when made either by bewitched persons or by those accused of witchcraft should be so far as possible suppressed. He did not therefore reveal the confessions of the unhappy Glover woman, and the case of the Goodwin children had no further results. A short time afterwards, when the Salem epidemic was raging, a girl named Mercy Short, who lived in Boston, declared that she had been bewitched by one of the women in prison at Salem, and proceeded to go through the usual performances of bewitched persons. Mather adopted with her his remedy of prayer, and he did the same in the case of Margaret Eule, a few months later. In both instances his policy had at least the result of preventing further accusations by the bewitched girls, and the history of Boston was not marked by any further executions such as were then taking place in the neighbouring town. That Mather was both vain and superstitious cannot be doubted even 88 Boston. if he had not had his controversy with Eobert Calef to enlighten us upon that point. At the same time it must be admitted that however gross his superstition may have been, his practical policy in regard to the matter of witchcraft was a humane one, much more so than the attitude then generally held in regard to the delusion in all parts of the. world, and that his superstitious beUef in witchcraft and diabolism was common at that day to the great mass of civilized mankind, both educated and ignorant. But these Boston cases were sporadic, and the town was but little affected by the doings at Salem in the way of actual cases of witchcraft. Indeed, as the Salem epidemic spread and gathered in force, it met finally with its most serious check in Boston ; for there it actually threatened the governor's wife, and the gov ernor returning from an expedition to the eastward put a stop to proceedings which had begun to menace the well-being of the entire community. The administration of Phipps, owing to the character of the man, was so peculiar that it can hardly be said to have been typical of the royal governors who suc ceeded him; and yet we can find in these years the general outlines of the policy and events which char acterized the history of Boston and Massachusetts under the provincial charter. The principal interest of the colony was in the Indian wars, which beginning again after a brief respite following the death of Phipps, and drifting away to the north and east, raged along the frontiers for the next thirty years with little intermis sion. These Indian wars differed very much in char acter from those of earUer times. The Indians were now organized and led by the French, men who not Under the Province Charter. 89 only had military experience, and European training, but who were able to deal with the savages in a manner of which the English were quite incapable. Against the savages alone the early Puritans of New England had shown themselves to be perfectly effective ; but against the savages led and organized by French men, the colonists of a later day found themselves at the beginning seriously overmatched. It was many years before they succeeded in developing a class of Indian fighters who were as hardy and crafty as the savages themselves, and not much less cruel. Phipps's career in respect to the Indians very much resembled the history of the succeeding years. Eelying on the force of the colony, he struck the French a heavy blow, and captured one of their towns; he then failed in a larger expedition, which sought nothing less than the conquest of Canada, while in the mean time the out lying settlements were surprised, farmhouses were burned, men were murdered, and women and children were dragged off into captivity. It was a period of wars in Europe ; and whenever William or Marlborough fought the French, the Indians fought the English colonies. The peace of Eyswick and the treaty of Utrecht, each brought a truce for the time to Europe ; but the savages of northern New England, although their warfare luUed a Uttle, paid but slight attention to treaties, aud kept up their fighting pretty steadily whether the great powers on the other side of the water were actually at war or not. In another respect Phipps was less Uke those who came after him, for as a native of the country and a bold and enterprising man, even his foibles were of a 90 Boston. kind which tended to make him popular with the colonists. Yet notwithstanding all this, he could not live in peace with the representatives of the people. He represented the Crown, he was the royal governor ; and the people of Massachusetts, however much they liked him personally, had been too long independent to accept the imposition of an outside rule which they felt to be totally unnecessary. The line of their oppo sition however was not developed in Phipps's time, nor indeed until some years later. For four years after Phipps's departure the colony was governed by Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton, one of the old Puritan stock, who was wedded to the re ligious habits and political traditions of the people, although he was among those who had found their in terest in a reasonable submission to the Crown. Dur ing this period the Indian wars continued with unabated ferocity on the frontier, but domestic affairs were quiet. The people paid no attention to the Navigation Acts ; and the affairs of the colony went on with no marked conflict between the people and the Crown until, in 1699, a new governor arrived in the person of the Earl of Bellomont, to whom was intrusted the government of New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New Jersey. Bellomont was a courtier, and a man of attractive manners, who made himself very popular among the hard-headed Puritans of the Bay Colony. He was also an effective administrator, for it was owing to him that Captain Kidd was taken, and piracy largely suppressed. He told the General Court that the king expected that a becoming salary should be settled upon the governor. Under the Province Charter. 91 and thus began what proved to be the most crucial struggle of the people against the Crown under the pro vincial charter. The General Court had not the slight est intention of settling a salary upon anybody, even if he was an earl and a popular man ; but they liked Bel lomont, and voted him presents, as they termed them, which amounted to £1,875, good pay in those days for the fourteen months during which BeUomont re mained in Massachusetts, and the largest sum any gov ernor was destined to receive for a long time. At the end of that period BeUomont returned to New York, and shortly afterward died. Then the contest slumbered once more. Stough ton was again acting-governor, and on his death, in 1701, the Executive Council administered the govern ment until the arrival of the next governor, who this time was one who had already played a great part in Massachusetts politics. Joseph Dudley, who arrived in Boston with a commission as governor on the 11th of June, 1702, was b}'' birth a Puritan of the Puritans. His father, Thomas Dudley, was one of the most conspicuous and noble figures among the leaders of the early immigra tion. He had alternated in the supreme office with Winthrop; and with the exception of Winthrop there was probably no man to whom the people looked up with more reverence and respect. The son of such a father inherited, therefore, the good-will of the people among whom he was born ; and he came at an early age into public life and public trust. He came upon the field of poUtics at the time when the colony was entering on its last struggle for the preservation of its charter and its independence. He appears at first to have been of 92 Boston. the popular party, but it is evident that he soon saw that for his purposes the popular was not the winning side. He early became, therefore, one of the leaders of the party of submission, and was sent out to repre sent the colony as one of its agents in England, when he went completely over, and from being one of the moderate and submissive party, became an active adher ent of the Crown. For this he soon reaped his reward in being sent out as President of the provisional govern ment, which preceded the coming of Andros, under whom he subsequently held high office, and with whom he was identified both in policy and in popular hatred. After the revolution which dethroned the Stuarts, and sent Andros a prisoner across the ocean, Dudley re turned to England, where he speedily gained the favour of the new rulers, was made governor of the Isle of Wight, and was elected a member of Parliament. One would think that all this would have gratified an am bitious man much more than anything which a strug gling colony on the shores of New England could offer ; but, as so often happens, Dudley's cherished desire was to be the first man in his own viUage rather than sec ond at Eome. He strove to get the governorship of Massachusetts when BeUomont was appointed; and again he strove, and this time successfuUy, after Bello- mont's death. He remained in office for thirteen years, and finally died, in 1720, at his estate in West Roxbury. It is safe to say that of all the representatives of the Crown who governed in New England there was no one so cordiaUy hated by the people as Joseph Dudley, who not only represented that outside power which they so disliked, but who was regarded as one who had betrayed Under the Province Charter. 93 his race and his religion. That he was judged very harshly in the fervour of the day, we may well beUeve ; but that he was an astute, intriguing, double-dealing man, cannot be doubted. It was not merely that he deserted the popular side and counselled submission to England, for many honest men did that in the last days of the colonial charter; but he very obviously sold himself, and not only submitted but went over to the opposite side, and made himself the most active agent of a poUcy which he knew to be unjust and hateful to the people who had looked up to him and his father as leaders. When Andros fell, Dudley was committed to jaU lest the outraged people should set upon him ; and he was then driven forth from his native land a pris oner, and in disgrace. Now he had come back to rule over it, and his rule was Uke himself. He was by no means a stupid man. On the contrary, he possessed marked abilities, and was a good administrator. In some respects he was clearly in the right, as in his con troversy with the Mathers in relation to the college, in which the governor's policy made for liberality and progress ; but he was as clearly unsuccessful in regard to the Indian wars, and was charged, on what seems to be very good ground, with Ulicit trading in arms and goods with the enemy. He entirely faded, of course, to get on with the representatives of the people. He made attempts, in accordance with his instructions, to induce them to rebuild the fort at Pemaquid, to give Mm a suitable official residence, and to settle upon him a proper salary. AU these things the General Court refused. The first two were unimportant enough, the third involved the principle for which the colonies nl- 94 Boston. timately went to war. If the governor was to receive a settled salary during his term of office, or was to be paid from England, the representatives of the people who were taxed would have no longer any control over him. Dudley was the first of the royal governors to begin the fight in regard to this matter of salary. For some time he refused the money-grants ; but as he could get nothing else, he at last gave way, although he was so disliked that there was hardly any year when he re ceived more than i£600. He was constantly quarrelling with the House of Eepresentatives, negatived everybody nominated by the House for the Council who was in the least obnoxious to him, and undertook to go a step further and put his veto upon the choice of Speaker, in which he was finally compelled to yield. Thus it went on during his whole administration, the ill-feeling deep ening between the Assembly and the governor, who was unable to advance a step in his purposes. With the accession of George I., Dudley retired from public life ; and the office that he had sought so eagerly and held so long could have been little more to him than a bitter memory of disappointment and defeat. A year later, 4th of October, 1716, the new governor appointed by George I. arrived. This was Col. Samuel Shute ; and although a more honest man than Dudley, he was quite as rigid in his defence of what he con sidered the royal prerogative. His whole administration was from beginning to end one long quarrel with the Assembly. He was persistent and domineering ; the members were factious and self-wUled. They struggled together about the Navigation Acts, and about the ef forts of England to repress the attempts of the colonies Under the Province Charter. 95 to engage in manufactures, which now were becom ing numerous and successful. They wrangled of course about salaries, and also about the new subject which the long-continued wars had brought into existence, the issuing of paper-money and the establishment of a public or private bank. There was only one point in which they agreed, and that was in the prosecution of the Indian wars. Here the Assembly and the governor worked together with a vigour which was creditable to their patriotism ; and under Shute the New Englanders finally succeeded in bringing the troubles on the eastern frontier substantiaUy to an end. The most dangerous enemy of the colonies among the Indians was the Jesuit, Father Easle, who had built a chapel and established a village at Norridgewock, from wMch as a centre he despatched war-parties in all directions against the English settlements. Whether France or England were at peace or war, these plottings and intrigues of the Jesuit went on, until at last the New Englanders succeeded in surprising him in August, 1724. In the slaughter that followed. Father Easle was kUled and the Indians dispersed. During this long period of the Indian wars which had fallen so grievously on the frontiers, the actual hostUities, the burnings, ambushes, and slaying had of course drifted farther and farther away from Boston. The town itself suffered only indirectly in the long conflict, by its contributions of both men and money, which were freely given. In these ways the people of Boston had borne a heavy burden, and the compara tive cessation of hostilities was no doubt of great bene fit to them. Through it all, however, the town had 96 Boston. continued to grow and to prosper by its trade, which now reached into every sea, and which it must be ad mitted was carried on largely in almost open violation of the Navigation Acts. In Boston also was the seat of government, and it was while the people of Massa chusetts were bringing their protracted Indian wars to a successful conclusion that their complicated con troversies with Governor Shute also came to a head. The representatives of the people were at odds with him about ship-timber for the king, about the Impost Bill, about the right to negative the Speaker, and about his own pay. Shute demanded £1,000 as salary, and they had given him £360. The House also during this and nearly all subsequent administrations kept an agent in London, who steadily opposed the governor, repre sented the popular grievances, and did all that was pos sible to induce the ministry to recaU the governor for the time being, who was pretty sure to be unpopular with the colonists. Shute carried on these various con troversies with a good deal of tenacity and in an un yielding spirit for about ten years, and then departed, in 1723, to urge his complaints at home, leaving Dum mer, the lieutenant-governor, to occupy the chair, in which he continued, as it happened, for nearly six years. Shute had better fortune at home against the agents of the Provinces than he had met with in his contests in Massachusetts itself He gained a large measure of success, and the only wonder is that he did not con trive to have the provincial charter, which was really very liberal for those days, entirely done away with. But although he did not go as far as this, he succeeded in having passed in London, in 1675, a supplementary Under the Province Charter. 97 charter, to which the people of Massachusetts were forced reluctantly to submit. This additional instru ment secured to the governor a negative on the elec tion of the Speaker, limited the term for which the House might adjourn itself to two days ; but curiously enough it contained no provision for fixing a salary, on which the principle involved in the contest reaUy hinged. Before Shute could return with the fruits of his victory to Boston, George I. died, and the governor's commission of course came to an end. George II. on coming to the throne pensioned Shute, and appointed as his successor, William Burnett, son of the celebrated bishop, who reached Massachusetts from New Jersey in March, 1728, and died at the Province House in Boston, in September, 1729. He was wel comed with a great deal of pomp and parade, and with a large expenditure of money for the small treasury of those days ; and then before the rejoicings had fairly subsided he entered upon a fierce contest over the salary question, which lasted until his death, and embittered his whole tenure of office. The General Court would fix no salary, and the governor would accept no temporary grant, although the representatives raised their offer as high as £3,000. This determination and honesty were not without their effect on public feeUng, al though of no avail in changing the policy of the House. Despite their stubborn conflict the people liked Burnett, for he was open and fair in his contest ; and they could not but admire the spirit with which he carried it on. When he died, they buried him with great pomp, and five years afterward voted his children £3,000. Lieutenant-Governor Dummer, once more 7 98 Boston. called to control, carried on the salary struggle, but advanced no farther than Burnett. Then after the lapse of a year there came a new governor, another native of the Province, Jonathan Belcher, under whom the vexed salary question finally came to an end. Belcher was of good Puritan stock, but, like Stoughton and Dudley, was one of those who had found his profit in an early submission to the new order of things. He was a polished, well-bred and well-educated man, and although devoid of Dudley's treacherous disposition, was capable of intrigue and much subtlety in political management. He knew his own people well, and un doubtedly felt that he could succeed where others had failed. His hope was not unreasonable, but his fate did not differ widely from that of his predecessors. The lesser points of controversy, as invariably happened, gradually sank away, leaving in lonely distinctness this particular issue, which involved the question of prin ciple. Belcher tried to divide his opponents, and to win the Council to his side, in which he very largely succeeded ; but the House stood firm, and after much refusal to grant salary on one side and to accept pres ents on the other, in 1735 the Duke of Newcastle sent the governor orders to accept the sum granted for a year, and afterward to take the most he could get. Thus on this point the popular cause had triumphed, and it was not until the same question came up in another form that the matter of the governor's salary became again a political issue in Massachusetts. The interest of this long and apparently petty fight over a salary lies in the proof it gave of the keen instinct of the New England people for the question in which a Under the Province Charter. 99 vital principle was involved. If the governor had a fixed salary, or if he was paid by an outside 'power, his official responsibility to the tax-payers was at an end. The people of Massachusetts saw this perfectly. Whether the formula of the moment be that taxation without representation is tyranny, or that the chief executive magistrate must depend on the people for his pay, the principle is ever the same, — that the secret and safety of popular government is in the responsibility of the officers of government to the people. This principle the Puritans of Massachusetts established when they set up their independent government under the charter. They clung to it through all the years of provincial gov ernment, fighting for it with all the royal governors and never losing sight of their object, until at last it brought them to war with England, and finally to complete in dependence. If any one in England had taken the trouble to study and understand these Colonial ques tions, they would have noted the political sagacity and tenacity of purpose of these people, and would have seen that meddling and misgovernment applied to such material might have disastrous results. Belcher's general administration, which lasted until 1741, was peaceable enough outside the salary question, and the town and province throve. He then was suc ceeded by William Shirley, who continued as governor through the next fifteen years. Shirley had the usual controversies with the Assembly, which were consider ably modified by the disappearance of the salary ques tion; but his career in this country extended over a much wider field than any that Massachusetts could afford. It was the period of one of the great wars with loo Boston. France, in which the men of Massachusetts achieved the most conspicuous success that fell to the British arms. In this war Shirley bore a conspicuous part; for although not the great soldier that he perhaps thought himself, he was certainly a man fertile in resource, and of great organizing capacity. In 1745 it was determined by a majority of one vote in the legislature to send an expedition against Louisburg, the strongest post with the exception of Quebec in all the French possessions. The expedition was largely fitted out and prepared in Boston, and was commanded by William Pepperell, who had no especial military training to fit him for the place. Contrary to everything that might have been reasonably anticipated, the attempt was crowned with complete success. The troops reached Louisburg at the end of April, 1745, and besieged it for six weeks, when the French surrendered. Mr. Parkman sets this result down to audacity, hardihood, and good luck ; but what ever the reasons were, it was a brilliant feat of arms, and reflected great credit on the colony and governor who were most concerned in it. When Shirley returned to England, in 1756, he was succeeded by Thomas Pownall, who came out when the colony was labouring amidst the debts incurred during the war, and when a new war, destined to be of much wider extent, and have results much more far-reaching than the one just closed, was breaking upon it. Dur ing this war which was world-wide and which, under the guidance of William Pitt, resulted in the downfall of the French power in America, Massachusetts played a great part. At this time, as usual when in presence of an enemy, the colonists allowed their quarrels with Under the Province Charter. ioi the governor to slumber while all worked together for the success of the campaign, — a policy which was by no means common in the American colonies of that time. Fortunately for them aud for the cause in which they were engaged, PownaU was the best of the royal gov ernors. He was a wise aud able man, who understood the people, and comprehended the prospects opening before the country. After his experience in America he went back to England to utter vain warnings iri Par liament against the fatal policy which resulted in the division of the empire. The line of the royal governors does not end with Pownall. There were two more to follow. But Pow- nall's administration, made honourable by his own career and brUliant by the successes of the war, closed the second period in the history of Massachusetts and of Boston. With the next governor, although the pro vincial charter stiU remained in existence, the colony entered upon the struggle with England in which it was to play the leading part, and which, after spreading to aU the other colonies, culminated in the War of In dependence. The first period in the history of Boston, covering the foundation and establishment of the Puri tan settlements, lasted for fifty years, and was a period of complete poUtical independence; then came the short despotic rule of Andros, the revolution which set WilUam and Mary on the throne, and the entrance of the colony upon what may be called the second or Provincial period, under the provincial char ter, and subject to the control of the mother country. The relations which the early Puritans had carefully severed were then renewed, — not only with England, I02 Boston. but with all parts of the world. It was a period of great material growth, and throughout it aU there runs the thread of continued resistance to outside government which the fifty years of early independence made nat ural if not inevitable. It was on the whole a quiet time and one of material prosperity, despite the con tinued Indian wars. The only question which really involved a fundamental principle was that of the gov ernor's salary, and that w^as finally settled in favour of the representatives of the people of Massachusetts. In other respects the Ministry had wisely left the colony pretty much alone, and thus it came to the threshold of the most vital change in its history. The Capital of the Province. 103 CHAPTEE VII. THE CAPITAL OF THE PROVINCE. The close of what is known in our history as the Old French War, and the destruction of the power of France on the North American continent, marked a great epoch in the career of the English colonies. It was in fact the turning-point, where the colonies began to leave the colonial condition and to enter upon that of independent existence. This new movement was due to the removal of the power of France, which left the colonies entirely free to consider their relations with the mother country ; for the dread of French aggression had been one of the strongest bonds between England and her colonies, and this bond was now destroj'ed. The mere fact that all danger from French invasion had been re moved did not in itself mean that there was to be any revolution or any independence for the English colo nies ; but it none the less cleared the way for both these events, and made their coming easier. It was moreover the expense entailed by this war which brought upon the colonies the attention of England, with her consequent attempts at taxation, and thus began the great democratic movement that was destined to spread and grow far beyond the conception of any man then living, and to far outrun the limits of the continent where it started. With the end of the Old French I04 Boston. War and the accession of George III., the period was reached in which Boston was to be the central point of the struggle then opening. Thus the town came quite without its own knowledge to the parting of the ways, and there is no point at which we can pause more fitly to look at colonial Boston than at the moment when she entered upon the movement which was to put an end to colonial existence. Boston had grown steadily, if not rapidly, in popu lation since the days of Philip's War, when with some six thousand inhabitants it had contributed its large quota to the colonial forces, and borne the lion's share of the public expenditure. In 1760, Boston had about twenty-five thousand inhabitants, and was probably the largest, and was certainly the most important, town on the continent. This importance was not derived from the numbers of its people so much as from its foreign commerce, its trade and industry, the considerable amount of capital which was there accumulated, and from the fact that it was the central point and chief city of the most compact population to be found on the Atlantic seaboard. With the exception of London there were not many English towns which surpassed it in these respects, or were much ahead of it in population ; and it was well known to the commercial world of Eng land as one of the most important places in the British dominions. It still retained its English look ; and Bur- iiaby, who visited it about 1760, compares its appear ance to that of a thriving English town. It had however greatly improved in outward appearance from the little Puritan town which had grown up under the old charter. The Capital of the Province. 105 As seen from the harbour, Boston was formed of an amphitheatre of houses, rising gradually one above the other from the water's edge. There were many wharves built out with much industry ; and conspicuous among them was the " Long Wharf," esteemed a prodigious work at the time, which was two thousand feet in length, and covered with handsome warehouses. From Long Wharf ran King Street, then the principal business street, through the heart of the town ; and at its head was the Town-house, where the State Government in all its branches met, and beneath which the merchants held their exchange, and booksellers their stalls. The streets were sufficiently wide, but crooked and irregular, paved with cobble-stones, with gutters in the middle, and side walks marked off by a line of posts and chains. They were clean and well kept; aud although not lighted with any sufficiency before the year 1773, were quiet and orderly. In the daytime the streets and squares swarmed with the eager Ufe of a bustling, trading com munity; and there were many fine and well-stocked shops, as weU as two fairs, one at each end of the town, which were held daily for ordinary traffic. To the south of the town there was a small but pleasant common, where, even at the end of the seventeenth century, John Dunton writes, that " gallants were wont to walk with their marmalet madams as we do in Moorfield." There were also public buildings of no little pretence in size and appearance, and solidly built in the fashion of the eighteenth century. One of these was Faneuil Hall, which had been presented to the town by the rich merchant whose name it bore; another was the Town House, which stUl stands, like Faneuil Hall, practically io6 Boston. unchanged; still another was the Province House, a handsome building where the royal governors lived ; and there were besides not far short of twenty churches, the majority belonging to the Congregationalists, who were of course the prevailing sect. The harbour was always busy with shipping; and the Long Wharf, and its companions with their rows of warehouses, stretched far out into the water. The changes in the appearance of the buildings and the streets were no less marked than those in the population itself In the early days of the colonial charter, if there were few people who were rich, there were none who were very poor; but like all seaports, Boston soon gathered to itself a fioating population, which formed a class unknown in the previous cen tury. With the growth of wealth, differences in con dition became more marked, and poverty ceased to be unknown. A workhouse and an almshouse were un pleasant evidences of the changes which had been wrought in this respect, and of the necessity which had arisen for public charity. The increased number of school-houses showed that the Puritan policy of education had never been neg lected, but had advanced with the prosperity of the community. The influence of the schools and the in telligent character of the population, were manifested also in other ways. There were now three or four newspapers, one almost as old as the century ; and various attempts were made at periodical publications, with higher literary ambition than the news-letters and gazettes ventured upon. Book-stores too had increased, and the native pubUcations had multiplied, indicating The Capital of the Province. 107 the presence of some literary activity, although its results are pretty well forgotten to-day. In a simUar fashion, although not so rapidly, the material interests and the amusements of the people as well had broadened and multiplied since the early Puri tan days. Despite the kindly efforts of England to choke off American industries, manufactures were be ginning to rear their heads ; and ship-building occupied many persons, and brought much wealth to the Bay. In the methods of living, there had also been marked changes, — more marked of course in Boston than in the country towns, where there was no floating popu lation, practically no mixture of rages, and where the people clung to the ways of their ancestors with the stanch conservatism characteristic of their race. Much of the alteration in this direction was due to the politi cal changes. The royal government brought with it not only a governor but a number of other Crown officers, who dressed handsomely and lived well, and whose scar let coats stood out in bright relief against the sober Puritan dress, as did their dancing and merry-making against the sombre background of daily Puritan life. The Puritans themselves, however, were not by any means averse to many of the comforts which money brings. Nearly forty years earlier, we learn from Sewall's Diary that one of his numerous courtships came to nothing, because he and the lady could not agree about keeping a coach ; and we know from the valua tions and the Acts of the legislature that there were many horses -in Boston, and that coaches, chariots, chaises, and chairs were taxed, with the exception of those of the govemor and the settled ministers. We io8 Boston. can get the best idea on this point from the travels of Mr. Bennett, in 1740, whose observations are freely drawn upon by Mr. Scudder in his admirable account of life in Boston during the Provincial period.^ Mr. Bennett says, — " There are several families in Boston that keep a coach and pair of horses, and some few drive with four horses ; but for chaises and saddle-horses, considering the bulk of the place, they outdo London. They have some nimble, lively horses for the coach, but not any of that beautiful black breed so common in London. Their saddle-horses all pace naturally, and are generally counted surefooted ; but they are not kept in that fine order as in England. Their roads, ' though they have no turnpikes, are exceedingly good in sum mer ; and it is safe travelling night or day, for they have no highway robbers to interrupt them. It is pleasant riding through the woods ; and the country is pleasantly inter spersed with farmhouses, cottages, and some few gentlemen's seats between the towns." Again he says, — " When the ladies ride out to take the ?iir, it is generally in a chaise or chair, and then but a single horse, and they have a negro servant to drive them. The gentlemen ride out here as in England, some in chairs, and others on horseback, with their negroes to attend them. They travel in much the same manner on business as for pleasure, and are attended in both by their black equipages." Here we get a hint of another change which wealth and the advance of time had brought, in the presence of 1 Memorial History of Boston, vol. ii. chap. xvi. b The Capital of the Province. 109 a comparatively large body of negroes, who formed the bulk probably of the domestic servants, there being some fourteen hundred or more of them in the town. The horses, carriages, and servants of the richer Bos tonians were, however, only an indication of the wealth and comfort which were shown in other ways. There were many handsome houses, some outside the town on fine country estates, but most of them within the city limits. Their owners suffered from cold, for the only method of heating was by wood-fires, and these were insufficient for the climate. "'Tis dred- ful cold," writes Cotton Mather, in the year 1720, with his wonted simplicity of expression " my ink- glass in my standish is froze and splitt in my very stove. My ink in my pen suffers a congelation." With this important exception, however, the houses were probably as comfortable as any in the world, if not so splendid. Let us take Cooper's description of one of them, given by him in " Lionel Lincoln," and quoted by Mr. Scudder in the sketch which has already been referred to. It is a novelist's account, but nevertheless one which all the recorded facts that we know show to be fairly accurate, of the house in which Sir Harry Frankland, an officer of the customs, lived. Frankland was one of the pic turesque figures of the Provincial period, and has been made familiar in verse and prose on account of Agnes Surriage, whom he carried off from Marblehead and subsequently married, in a fit of repentance, after a nar row escape from the Lisbon earthquake. The house in which he Uved in Boston was something after this fashion : — 1 10 Boston. "It was built of brick, and of an exterior altogether more pretending than most of those in the lower parts of the town. It was heavily ornamented in wood, according to the taste of a somewhat earlier day, and presented a front of seven windows in its two upper stories, those at the ex tremes being much narrower than the others. The lower floor had the same arrangement, with the exception of the prin cipal door. . . . The youth was conducted through a hall of some dimensions, into an apartment which opened from one of its sides. This room would be considered, at the present day, much too small to contain the fashion of a country town ; but what importance it wanted in size was amply compensated for in the richness and labor of its decorations. The walls were divided into compartments by raised panel- work, beautifully painted with imaginary landscapes and ruins. The glittering, varnished surfaces of these pictures were burdened with armorial bearings, which were intended to illustrate the alliances of the family. Beneath the sur- base were smaller divisions of panels, painted with various architectural devices ; and above it rose, between the com partments, fluted pilasters of wood with gilded capitals. A heavy wooden and highly ornamented cornice stretched above the whole,' furnishing an appropriate outline to the walls. . . . The floor, which shone equally with the furniture, was tessellated with small alternate squares of red cedar and pine, and in the centre were the ' salient lions ' of Lechmere, at tempted by the blazonry of the joiner. On either side of the ponderous and labored mantel were arched compartments of plainer work, denoting use, the sliding panels of one of which, being raised, displayed a buffet groaning with massive plate," There were many houses not unlike this both in their interior and exterior. The furniture was English for The Capital of the Province. hi the most part, and was both handsome and substantial. The houses stood generally in large gardens, and repre sented probably all the efforts of taste and luxury of which that day was capable. The men and women who lived in them, as we can see from Copley's pictures, dressed, despite their Puritan traditions, with all the richness of which silk and satin and lace were capable ; while wigs, the coming of which Sewall had so exceed ingly deplored, were universally worn in accordance with the last fashion in England. The amusements of Boston were neither varied nor interesting, but still the people had amusements of a simple kind. Besides the universal athletic sports, and riding, hunting, fishing, shooting, and skating, there were sleigh-rides in winter to some neighbouring tavern, fol lowed by a supper and dance ; and, in summer, excur sions down the harbour, picnics on the islands, and little parties into the country to drink tea and drive home by moonlight. Theatres were strongly resisted, and do not seem to have been fairly established and accepted until after the Revolution. In the year 1767 Andrew Eliot writes to Hollis : " I am no enemy of innocent amuse ments, but I have long thought our modern theatres the bane of virtue. I had such an opinion of their pernicious tendency, especiaUy in a young country, that I had ex erted myself to procure an act to prohibit them when introduced some years ago. This does not wholly pre vent them, but so many are engaged to prevent them that they will not soon be tolerated." This was prob ably a fair expression of Boston opinion at the time, but the ultimate result was very different from that antici pated by the letter-writer. There were no coffee-houses 112 Boston. except the one at the Merchants' Exchange, but there were numerous clubs, which met at private houses or at taverns, and which were well attended and much enjoyed. On a coronation or royal birthday, or on great public occasions — such as the taking of Louisburg — there were extensive celebrations ; the town was illumi nated, bonfires were lighted, and the streets were fiUed with people. Here is a contemporary account, much better than any which can be constructed now, of the way in which Boston people occupied themselves when not engaged in the serious affairs of business or religion. " Every afternoon, after drinking tea, the gentlemen and ladies walk the Mall, and from thence adjourn to one an other's houses to spend the evening, — those that are not dis posed to attend the evening lectures ; which they may do, if they please, six nights in seven the year round. What they call the Mall is a walk on a fine green common adjoining to the south-west side of the town. It is near half a mile over, with two rows of young trees planted opposite to each other, with a fine footway between, in imitation of St. James Park ; and part of the bay of the sea which encircles the town, taking its course along the north-west side of the Common, — by which it is bounded on the one side, and by the country on the other, — forms a beautiful canal, in view of the walk. Their rural diversions are chiefly shooting and fishing. For the former, the woods afford them plenty of game ; and the rivers and ponds with which this country abounds yield them great plenty, as well as variety, of fine fish. The govern ment being in the hands of dissenters, they don't admit of plays or music-houses ; but, of late, they have set up an assembly, to which some of the ladies resort. But they are The Capital of the Province. 113 looked upon to be none of the nicest in regard to their repu tation ; and it is thought it will soon be suppressed, for it is much taken notice of and exploded by the religious and sober part of the people. But notwithstanding plays and such like diversions do not obtain here, they don't seem to be dispirited nor moped for want of them, for both the ladies and gentlemen dress and appear as gay, in common, as cour tiers in England on a coronation or birthday. And the ladies here visit, drink tea, and indulge every little piece of gentil ity to the height of the mode, and neglect the affairs of their families with as good a grace as the finest ladies in London." We get here a hint of what was undoubtedly the truth, that although the fine houses, handsome carriages, and rich dresses were shared by the more wealthy among the people of native stock, the amusements and modes of life which have just been described were confined almost entirely to the representatives of the Crown and their immediate circle. The great body of the popula tion were still Puritans, liberalized and softened no doubt by the advance of time, but wedded to the tradi tions of their forefathers, and leading sober, hard-working lives. The mass of the population lived comfortably in good houses, gave their days to toil, and found their chief interest in religion ; and although their mode of existence seems dull to us, it was probably of in terest to them. They were the people who formed the strength and backbone of the Massachusetts commu nity, and it was they who resisted England and fought out the War of the Eevolution. Despite the outward changes among the upper classes, — for there was a very distinct aristocracy in Massachusetts as in the other 8 1 14 Boston. colonies, — the Puritan ideas were too deeply branded to have been done away with by any change of govem ment. We see proof of this in customs which look strange now, but which tell the story of the stern faith that had made the existence of the town and State pos sible. SewaU describes one custom which was exceed ingly characteristic, and if not picturesque, was at least interesting. In the early days of the century, when the great curse of the provincial trade was piracy, and when captured pirates were brought to the town to receive their punishment, before they were led to the scaffold they were always taken on a Sunday to one of the churches, and there were preached at by the clergyman, to the great edification of the congregation if not to that of the criminals themselves. The Puritans were not a people who ever shrank from the infliction of what they thought merited punishment; and the penalties for crime in New England were almost as severe and barba rous as in the mother country. But the Puritan always prefixed to punishment the occasion which he never lost for moralizing, even when the malefactor was not con demned to death. If the offence was serious, the crimi nal was taken about from church to church on Sunday after Sunday, and used as a horrid example or text for the sermons of the divines, and as a warning to the con gregation. StUl deeper was the Puritan mark seen in the observ ance of Sunday, which was planted so deeply among EngUsh-speaking people that it remains to this day in its observances a monument to the memory of the men who brought a kiug to the block, and planted great commonwealths in the American wUderness. Let us The Capital of the Province. 115 borrow again some of Mr. Bennett's words, wMch bring home to us more keenly than any modern description can, what a Sunday was Uke in the Boston of the eigh teenth century : — " Their observation of the Sabbath (which they rather choose to call by the name of the Lord's Day, whensoever they have occasion to mention it), it is the strictest kept that ever I yet saw anywhere. On that day no man, woman, or child is permitted to go out of town on any pretence whatso ever ; nor can any that are out of town come in on the Lord's Day. The town being situated on a peninsula, there is but one way out of it by land ; which is over' a narrow neck of land at the south end of the town, which is enclosed by a fortification, and the gates shut by way of prevention. There is a ferry, indeed, at the north end of the town ; but care is taken by way of prevention there also. But if they could escape out of the town at either of these places, it wouldn't answer their end, for the same care is taken, all the country over, to prevent travelling on Sundays ; and they are as diligent in detecting of offenders of this sort, all over the New England government, as we in England are in stop ping up of highways, — more ; and those who are of the Independent persuasion refrain any attempts of this kind, in point of conscience. And as they will by no means admit of trading on Sunday, so they are equally tenacious about pre serving good order in the to\vn on the Lord's Day : and they wiU not suffer any one to walk down to the waterside, though some of the houses are adjoining to the several wharfs nor, even in the hottest days of summer, will they admit of any one to take the air on the Common, which lies contiguous to the town, as Moorfields does to Finsbur)"^. And if two or three people, who meet one another in the street by accident, stand talking together, if they do not disperse immediately 1 1 6 Boston. on the first notice, they are liable to fine and imprisonment ; aud I believe, whoever it be that incurs the penalties on this account, are sure to feel the weight of them. But that which is the most extraordinary is that they commence the Sabbath from the setting of the sun on the Saturday evening ; and ill conformity to that, all trade and business ceases, and every shop in the town is shut up : even a barber is finable for shaving after that time. Nor are any of the taverns per mitted to entertain company ; for in that case not only the house, but every person found therein, is finable. I don't mention this strict observance of the Lord's Day as intended rather to keep people within the bounds of decency and good order than to be strictly complied with, or that the appoint ment of this duty was only by some primary law since grown obsolete ; but that it is now in full force and vigor, and that the justices, attended with a posse of constables, go about every week to compel obedience to this law. " As to their ministers, there is no compulsory tax upon the people for their support, but every one contributes ac cording to their inclination or ability ; and it is collected in the following manner : every Sunday, in the afternoon, as soon as the sermon is ended, and before the singing of the last psalm, they have a vacant space of time, on which there are three or four men come about with long wooden boxes, which they present to every pew for the reception of what every one is pleased to put in them. The first time I saw this method of collecting for the parson, it put me in mind of the waiters at Sadler's WeUs, who used to collect their money just before the beginning of the last act. But not withstanding they thus collect the money for the mainten ance of the clergy in general, yet they are not left to depend entirely upon the uncertainty of what people shall happen to give, but have a certain sum paid them every Monday morn ing, whether so much happens to be coUected or not ; and no The Capital of the Province. 117 one of them has less than a hundred pounds sterling per annum, which is a comfortable support in this part of the world." The English Church had broken in on many of the ancient customs, with its ceremonials for weddings and funerals, and its celebration of holidays, in a way which affected more or less the whole population ; but the re ligious character which the Puritans had imprinted on their community could not be changed so soon by any ex ample, or in so short a time as three quarters of a century. Thus, then, the town comes before us as it stood on the verge of the most important years of its history, a vigorous, prosperous, thriving town, stretching out its trade all over the world, building up its industry, gather ing wealth, and growing in a steady, solid way, which gave good promise of strength and endurance. The people governed themselves in town meetings, and lived on the whole soberly and quietly after the fashion of their ancestors, educating their children, and sending one son when they could afford it to Harvard College, the height of Massachusetts ambition. They had long prayers and many sermons and lectures. There was but little light or colour in the dull life, except that which was given it by the Crown officers or by the strangers whom commerce brought within their gates. They were a sturdy people, too, very jealous of outside control, very ' watchful to see that their rights were not infringed, sus picious of all attempts on the part of the English Church to establish anything like Episcopacy, and yet withal they formed a loyal part of the great British empire, and one which that empire could ill afford to lose. ii8 Boston. CHAPTEE VIIL the BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. It is said that almost all the family quarrels in the world grow out of some question of money, and this was certainly true of the great family quarrel between the two branches of the English race, which ended in the establishment of American independence. It grew out of differences as to the payment of money, but the principle which was involved finally was none the less vital; for it was the principle of free representative government which was at stake. Sir Eobert Walpole, who was one of the greatest if not one of the purest and most virtuous of English statesmen, pursued toward the American colonies a policy of great wisdom. It is not clear whether he had laid down in his own mind and then car ried out in practice any settled plan, but his attitude to ward the colonies conformed exactly with his general theory as to what was best for England at that time. At home he aimed at peace and material prosperity, and strove by every means to gain time in order to enable the German dynasty to strike its roots so deep in the English soil that the old family could never come back. His policy toward America and her people was of the same char acter, but even simpler. He let them severely alone. The result was that the English colonies, not only in New England, where they had had a period of inde- The Beginning of the Revolution. 119 pendent government, but all along the Atlantic seaboard, were strengthened on the whole in their attachment to the mother country. It was true that they wrangled with their governors and with the representatives of the Crown, but they found that in the long run they had pretty much their own way, and that in a war they had the vast power of England upon their side, and shared in the glory of an empire of which they were justly proud. If succeeding ministers had inherited and carried out Sir Robert's policy, or had been great enough to under stand the colonies as Pitt understood them, there might never have been- a war for independence. There was nothing inevitable about the American Eevolution. No long series of oppressions, as in France, had heaped up the explosive material which was certain, sooner or later to ignite and produce a tremendous convulsion, both social and political. The people of the American colonies had not been oppressed, but on the whole had been very Uttle meddled with, and in the main had been permitted to govern themselves pretty much as they pleased, which was equivalent, in their case, to having as little government as possible. Yet on the other hand, if there were no causes at work which were sure to bring about revolution at that particular time, the character of the people and their political habits were such that if they were once interfered with or oppressed, revolution was almost certain speedily to ensue. The standing griev ances among the people of New England, and particu larly of Massachusetts, were the Navigation Act of Charles II. and the Sugar Act of 1733. The New Englanders had shown always a fine disregard for these 120 Boston. Acts of trade. They were violated in every direction, and public opinion, which is the foundation of aU effec tive laws, not only did not uphold these statutes, but sustained the offenders against them. From a legal point of view these breaches of the laws were nothing less than smuggling, yet it was smuggling carried on to an enormous extent, not by individuals, but by States and communities. Now and then there would be a spasmodic attempt to punish infractions of the law, but on the whole these misdeeds, like everything else under Walpole that it was inconvenient to deal with, had been let alone or winked at ; so that the profitable, illicit trade had extended widely in aU directions. With the fall of Pitt and the coming into power of new men, who were only creatures of the young king, an era of experiment at once began ; and improvements and reforms, as their authors considered them, were started everywhere throughout the government service. The Board of Trade, always inclined to be meddlesome, now thought it was high time to make the colonies auxiliary to English trade ; and it was with instractions to this end that Francis Bernard came out as the suc cessor of Pownall in the governorship. If Bernard had been chosen with a view to his peculiar unsuitableness for the years which were to follow, no better choice could have been made, a fact which was soon discovered. With the remembrance of PownaU and Shirley, however, fresh in their minds, the General Court at first treated him in a very friendly way ; but these good dispositions could not and did not last long. Bernard was not only bent on enforcing his instructions, but he was a narrow, captious man, utterly unable to understand the people. The Beginning of the Revolution. 121 and gifted with a large capacity for making his policy disagreeable, without the strength necessary to carry it through, or to make himself or it respected. For many years, in the relaxed condition of business under the Navigation Act, the custom-house officers, who according to the theory of the time came to the colonies chiefiy for their own enrichment, had used their position to make their fortunes, probably by corrupt practices, and certainly by an abuse of the system of forfeitures under the Sugar Act of 1733. The methods of the custom-house officers aud their exactions roused in time a great deal of feeling between them and the merchants and traders of the Province, both those who smuggled and those who carried on an honest commerce. At last, in the autumn of 1760, Charles Paxton, who was head of the Custom House at Boston, instructed one of his deputies in Salem to petition the Court for writs of assistance, which would enable the officers to forcibly enter dweUing-houses, stores, and warehouses in the execution of their duty, and for the purpose of seizing goods which they believed, whether rightly or wrongly, to be smuggled. This was a step beyond any thing that had yet been done. The people were ac customed to chronic difficulties with the custom-house officers and were not at aU sensitive to the ordinary procedure. But when it was proposed that these offi cers should be armed with a general, unlimited writ that enabled them at any time to enter the houses and shops, which the inhabitants of Massachusetts like aU other English subjects believed to be their castles, there was added to the dread of unlawful exactions of money a keen apprehension that some of their most cherished 122 Boston. principles were in danger. Eesistance therefore to the application for the writs at once began, and a hearing was asked for by James Otis, who thus stepped upon the stage as the first, and one of the most brilliant, in the line of patriotic orators who did so much to argue the cause of the Eevolution, and ultimately to bring on independence. Otis was a young man of repute and standing, with a promise of great talents and of a prosperous future opening before him. He held at this time the post of advocate-general for the colony, but resigned it because he would not act for the Crown in this case and ac cepted a brief on the other side. The memorable hearing was held in February, 1761. Thomas Hutchinson, who had just succeeded Stephen SewaU as chief-justice, heard the case together with his four associates. The court sat in the council chamber of the old Boston Town House, a fine old room ornamented, as we are told, with two full-length pictures of Charles II. and James IL, which unluckily have disappeared from human ken. The judges wore, after the fashion of the times, volumi nous wigs and scarlet robes, and were a sufficiently imposing and dignified body. On this occasion the court-room was crowded, for it was well understood that this was a matter in which much was at stake. The king's attorney argued the case for the Crown, and defended the validity of the writs on statute law and English practice. Oxenbridge Thatcher replied with a strong legal argument, taking the ground that the rule in English courts did not apply in America. If the case had stopped there, it would have been an interesting point in the development of the constitutional The Beginning of the Revolution. 123 controversy then beginning between England and her colonies ; but Otis, who followed Thatcher, gave the matter an entirely different turn. He went far outside any legal argument, and instead of the dry reasoning usually submitted to a court of the highest jurisdiction on a point of law, he made an impassioned speech, which took the question on to the broad ground of human rights. The echoes of that speech, of which only a few imperfect fragments survive in the notes of John Adams, have come down to us through more than a century vocal with many noises and much declaiming on all subjects. Otis said that the writs of assistance were instruments of slavery and villany, and that he appeared on behalf of British liberties. He declared that a man's house was his castle, and that this writ destroyed this sacred privilege ; that its only authority rested on the law of the time of Charles II. ; that no Act of Parliament could establish such a writ; and that it was against the principles of the British con stitution. Thus for four hours he poured out a stream of eloquence, which did not convince the Court, who held the writs to be legal ; but which roused the people, and fiUed their minds with thoughts of resistance to England. " Then and there," said John Adams, " the child independence was born." As so often happens, however, the contest over the writs of assistance seemed at the time to be sporadic and isolated. We can see now that it was the first link in the chain of events which led to world-wide results ; but at the moment the excitement died away, and no body realized how deeply Otis's argument had sunk into the popular mind. This happens not infrequently with 124 Boston. speeches which mark the beginning of a new era in politics. It was not until thirty years after the mem orable day on which Webster made his famous reply to Hayne that men realized how that great speech had been silently educating the people of the United States in the arguments and beliefs which were to enable them to face and overcome secession. In the same way, it was little understood in 1761 that the words of Otis, and the dramatic occasion of their delivery, had filled the popular mind with ideas which were to come into active play years afterward, and produce the most far- reaching results. The legality or iUegality of writs of assistance was a matter of smaU moment, but the elo quent argument which taught men to resent and resist outside interference was of the gravest consequence. In England, certainly, the question of the writs of assistance and the arguments of a colonial lawyer made no impression. The new ministry went on in their ap pointed fashion. They were, as has been said, very anxious to enter on the path of improvement ; but like many other reformers, they were especially interested in reforming somebody else. Charles Townshend, who was first Lord of Trade, and secretary of the colonies, had a complete scheme ready, by which he proposed to put aside not only charters and laws but the rights and privileges of the colonial legislature, and to grasp abso lute power of taxation. This moderate and judicious policy did not immediately succeed ; but not long after, George Grenville, in his capacitj'- of first Lord of the Admiralty, thought that it was a good plan to have the naval officers act as custom-house officers on the Ameri can coast, and the bill embodying this idea became a The Beginning of the Revolution. 125 law. Then Grenville became minister himself, with larger powers than ever, and proceeded to carry out still further his theory that the colonies should help to bear the expenses of the British Crown. Grenville was a worthy person, industrious in business, of no slight ability, but whoUy destitute of imagination, and utterly unable to appreciate the conditions of the colonies with which he was so ready to meddle. He therefore began whUe he was planning a colonial stamp act which was to pay the expenses of the army with a bill to impose duties on foreign commodities imported into America and on colonial products exported therefrom, together with a heavy duty on molasses and sugar, which formed the principal articles of trade in New England. This bill carried with it increased power for the Admiralty Courts, which was of itself deeply unpopular with the colonies, while the tax on sugar at once awoke the spirit of resistance. Otis came out with a pamphlet, an attempt was made to correspond with the other colonies, which was a most dangerous symptom, if England had had the wisdom to appreciate it, aud the legislature addressed the House of Commons against the Sugar Act. These acts however were soon forgotten in the one which foUowed in the next year, 1765. Then it was that Grenville brought in the famous Stamp Act, and passed it through the House, — not without some eloquent opposition, but still with no real difficulty. His lack of imagination had made him unable to an ticipate in the slightest degree the effect of this legis lation in America, but he had not long to wait in order to flnd out the view taken of his legislation by 126 Boston. those against whom it was directed. The news of the passage of the Stamp Act lit up the flame of resistance to England from one end of the colonies to the other. It required no elaborate explanation to teach a people more keenly alive to their political rights than any in the world, that an act which proposed to give the power of internal taxation to a Parliament where they had no voice, required little addition to become as perfect a system of irresponsible tyranny as could be devised. It was not the taxation of the Stamp Act that alarmed them, but the principle involved in it. In Boston, feel ing ran higher perhaps than anywhere else ; and unr fortunately it found vent not only in the measured and effective opposition of the leaders and of the great mass of the people, but in outbreaks of mob violence. The stamp distributor was hung in effigy, taken down in the evening and burned on Fort Hill, while the crowds iu the streets were so violent and excited that Bernard and Hutchinson fled to the Castle. Ee wards were offered for the apprehension of the offenders, but no one would act as informer. A few days later an other mob gathered, burned the papers of the Eegister of the Admiralty Court, plundered the house of the Comptroller of Customs, and then sacked the house of Hutchinson, and destroyed his really fine library, a dis graceful and outrageous performance which did much to injure the great cause in which all the people were engaged. A public meeting the next day denounced this riot and its excesses ; but despite this hostility to violence of any sort, the lawful opposition went on more vigorously than ever, and was much more serious than the outbreaks of the mob. The Beginning of the Revolution. 127 The legislature of Massachusetts passed a series of resolves declaring and setting forth the rights of the people, and this declaration of principles was circulated throughout America. Yet another resolve of the legis lature, passed much earlier, bore fruit on the 7th of October, in the first American Congress, which met at New York, and which was composed of delegates from the different colonies. The Congress did nothing very formidable. In a very temperate way they expressed their views in their resolutions protesting against the extension of the admiralty jurisdiction and the imposi tion of taxes, except by their own representatives. To this they joined an address to the king, a memorial to the House of Lords, and a petition to the House of Commons. Their resolutions and addresses were how ever little more than an extension of what the separate colonial assemblies had already done. The great fact about these gentlemen gathered in New York was that they formed a Congress, because that meant a union of the colonies ; and a union of the colonies was the one thing more fatal than any other to British supremacy. When the 1st of November came, the date at which the Stamp Act was to go into force, there was in Boston a universal refusal to use the stamps. The bells were toUed, minute guns were fired, flags were hung at half mast, and the crowd gratified itself by hanging Grenville in effigy. His stamps, however, were required for every transaction, and business therefore came to a standstill at once. The ports were closed, vessels could not sail, business was suspended, and at the same time agree ments were made by the people against using foreign importations. A month later efforts were made to open 128 Boston. the ports and the Custom House, which were in a meas ure successful ; but meantime the news of the outbreak of resistance in America travelling back to England had not only surprised but much alarmed the home Government. In the interval which had occurred since the passage of the act, Grenville had fallen from power, the Eock- inghairi Whigs had come in, and the political situation so far as America was concerned had radically changed. When Parliament reassembled, Pitt made his great at tack upon the Stamp Act, in which he declared that he rejoiced that America had resisted. The assault was followed up, and on the 24th of February the House passed a bill to repeal the obnoxious law, which on the 17th of March received the sanction of the king. The news of the repeal was received in the colonies with the greatest joy. Every form and demonstration of pleasure was indulged in, and statues and pictures were liberally voted in all parts of the continent to Pitt and to the other friends of America in the House of Com mons. The people, indeed, were so overjoyed that they did not notice that the English ministry in repealing the Stamp Act had made the fatal blunder of joining to it a declaratory act, in which they asserted that Par liament had the power to legislate for America in all cases whatsoever, thus reiterating the principle, which was the real thing at stake, while they gave up the practice, which was a merely temporary concession. As a matter of policy, two courses were open to England at this time. Parliament could either enforce the Stamp Act or it could repeal it, but to repeal the act and at the same time declare that it had the power which the law The Beginning of the Revolution. 129 claimed, manifested a weakness, which gave way before resistance, and yet coupled the surrender with a threat to repeat such legislation at a more convenient season. In a very short time the inevitable consequence of this declarative principle was seen in the passage of Townshend's BiU to levy duty on glass, paper, painters' colours and tea, and in the estabUshment of a Board of Customs at Boston, to coUect the American revenue, which was to be at the disposition of the king for the purpose of supporting the officers of the Crown inde pendently of the legislatures. The people of America now saw plainly that the victory over the Stamp Act, wMch had caused them such rejoicing, was in fact no real victory at all. They had obtained the repeal of a particular law, but they had not obtained any conces sion of the principle of the law. The repeal of the Stamp Act, foUowed by the declaratory act and Towns hend's BiU, were in fact the first of a series of blunders with which, by infinite stupidity, the British ministry drove into rebeUion a people whom they easily might have retained as loyal subjects of the British Crown simply by abstaining from oppressing them and by respecting their prejudices and habits of government. "Like master, Uke man." The representatives of the Crown were reproductions in Uttle of the ministers. Governor Bernard, who had a genius for producing use less irritation, refused to caU the legislature, and thus brought into play on the largest stage that body which was destined to lead the way in the Eevolution, the Boston Town Meeting under the lead of Samuel Adams. There, in town meeting, the people agreed not to import or use certain articles of British production, and there 9 I30 Boston. also they appointed a committee to extend their agree ments and circulate their resolutions. When the Mas sachusetts legislature finally came together, in January, 1768, they too carried on the war again in the town- meeting fashion ; and a circular-letter which they sent out,. drafted by Samuel Adams, alarmed the Crown offi cers, and drew down the denunciation of the secretary of the colonies. It is impossible here to enter in detaU into the con troversy which now followed between the Massachusetts legislature and the home Government ; but the revolu tionary movement which England had needlessly ex cited, was now moving steadily forward. On the one hand were letters, addresses to the king, attempts at union with other colonies, discussions in the news papers, and occasional outbreaks of violence among the people of the towns, to whom constitutional arguments were somewhat tedious. On the other hand there were orders to rescind the resolutions, to dissolve the as semblies, and to submit to the laws of Parliament, which met with nothing but stubborn refusal ; while as popular outbreaks came on the side of the people, so on the side of the Crown the intention to resort to force was seen in the appearance of troops in Boston. By the close of the year 1768, ships-of-war were in the harbour, and two regiments were landed, and encamped on the Common. The question was drawing very near to the point where something more vigorous than arguments about taxation would be needed to solve them. A year elapsed with out a legislature; and when it was again convened, it proved to be no more pliable than its predecessor. The representatives refused all the governor's requests, and The Beginning of the Revolution. 131 when at last he informed them he was going to Eng land to lay the state of affairs before the king, the Assembly responded by a unanimous petition to the king to remove him. On the departure of Bernard, Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson came to the chair. He was a native of the Province, of old Puritan stock, a man of ability, and a capable administrator, who had filled many offices, and on the whole had filled them well. In peaceable times he would have left an honoured if not a brilliant name. Unluckily, he fell on a period when it was per haps impossible for any representative of the Crown to succeed as governor of Massachusetts. Nevertheless, after making all aUowances, and after freely conceding that it was his duty to be loyal to the Crown and to seek by every method to properly enforce the laws, there can be no doubt that Hutchinson failed com pletely in the task presented to him. Unlike his pre decessor, he understood the people, and he ought to have known that the domineering methods of Bernard and the policy of the home Government were not only wrong, but were almost certain to hurry forward the very results which he most deplored. It was, perhaps, too late for any man to have affected the course of events, but it was certainly Hutchinson's duty, under standing as he did the Province and its people, to have pointed out to the ministry the proper course for them to pursue. He at least should have advised a return to the wiser system of Walpole. Instead of that he not only sustained the existing policy and urged its exten sion, but he secretly misrepresented the people to the home Government, and drove on the movements which 132 Boston. he must have known in the end could result only in open war. The situation required courage, moderation, frankness toward both parties and subserviency toward neither. Hutchinson irritated without controlling, and yielded without conciliating. He was disingenuous with the people and subservient with the ministry. While the non-importation agreements were being carried out throughout the colonies with such success as seriously to injure London merchants and English commerce, the troops remained in Boston, and their presence was a source of continual irritation which noth ing but their withdrawal could relieve. There were quar rels in the streets between the soldiers and the citizens, sometimes between individuals, and sometimes between groups on either side. The town was restless and un easy under a presence which it hated, and the troops were defiant and suspicious. At last on the 5th of March, 1770, the fatal outbreak came. It was a moon light evening, with a slight fall of snow glistening on the ground. During the afternoon there had been various trifling collisions between straggling soldiers and men and boys who were in the streets, brawls to which the town had become only too well accustomed. Then a little later came a brief struggle between some soldiers and some of the townspeople near the head of what is now State Street, which looked down toward the harbour and the shipping, over the Long Wharf, of which Boston commerce was so proud. The soldiers threatened to fire, and matters looked very serious, when an officer ordered the men into the yard of the barracks and had the gates shut. Unfortunately, the alarm bell already had been rung, and the people began to pour out into the streets. The Beginning of the Revolution. 133 supposing there was a fire. When they found the occa sion of the ringing, they scattered through the streets crying out against the soldiers, and making a good deal of noise and disturbance. Not long after nine o'clock some of the townspeople approached the Custom House on the north side of what is now State Street, where a sentinel was posted. Voices in the crowd cried, " Kill him ! Knock him down ! " and the sentry threatened to fire. " If you fire, you must die for it ! " called out Henry Knox, after ward Washington's Secretary of War, who happened to be passing. " I dou't care," replied the sentry ; " if they touch me, I will fire." Thereupon, the man levelled his gun, warned the crowd to keep off, and called to the main guard for help. In response to the cry for aid a sergeant with a file of men came from the Town House, and joined the sentry, together with Captain Preston of the 29th regiment. The crowd as they saw the soldiers loading began to shout at them, and dared them to fire. The excitement was rising fast, and the few men who kept their heads saw that great danger was at hand. Knox seized Preston and begged him to take his men back, teUing him that if they fired, his life must answer for the consequences. The soldiers then began to use their bayonets, and the people to throw stones. There was great confusion and then decisive action. No one knew exactly how it happened, or who gave the order, but in a moment the soldiers fired point blank upon the crowd. Three men were killed by the volley and eight others wounded, two of them mortally. The people fell back at first, and then returned. Meantime, Captain Preston withdrew his men to the main guard ; the drums 134 Boston beat to arms, and the 29th regiment began to form near the Town House. Now the alarm rang out everywhere in deadly earnest, and the excited people poured forth into the streets. It looked for a time as if war actually had come, with street-fighting of a bloody and disas trous kind. Fortunately, however, although the troops and their leaders showed a lamentable lack of steadi ness and intelligence, the people were well led; and Hutchinson, who soon appeared, after questioning Pres ton, spoke to the crowd from the balcony, and declared that the law should have its course. The people, how ever, refused to disperse until Captain Preston was arrested. Thereupon a Court of Inquiry was held ; Preston was bound over for trial, and the. soldiers who had fired were placed under arrest. It has been the fashion of late years to speak of what our ancestors called the " Boston Massacre," as a street riot, participated in by a disorderly class of peo ple, and as something of which it was not desirable to keep alive the memory, or to be very proud. It is true that it was the outbreak of a town mob, and that the per sons engaged in it belonged for the most pact to the lower class in the community ; although there was none of the criminal element from which the mobs of great cities are usually recruited, for Boston at that time did not possess a population of that character. It may be freely admitted also that the people upon whom Preston and his men fired were a street crowd, and that the out break was a disorderly riot. These facts do not in the least diminish the importance of the event itself The faU of the Bastille was the work of a mob ; a savage, ig norant, bloodthirsty mob, revenging past wrongs which The Beginning of the Revolution. 135 made their own doings seem gentle and respectable. Yet the fall of the Bastille marked the beginning of the French Eevolution, which shook the civilized world from one end to the other and wrought finally vast good to mankind. The instruments may have been rude, or even brutal, but their work was none the less momentous. In the same way, the Boston Massacre marked the begin ning of the American Eevolution, and the impulse which led to it was right, however faulty the means or the methods. The instinct of the people of Boston was against the presence of the soldiers quartered up on them, and their instinct was perfectly correct. The troops were the visible force, sent there from outside to sustain laws which the people believed fatal to their lib erties ; and the blind rage which led to the quarrel be tween the soldiers and the townspeople, as well as the final firing on the crowd, sprang from the instinctive conviction that the presence of these troops meant the overthrow of the freedom which the people most cher ished, and which they had always possessed. The rioting and bloodshed were soon over, but not so their results. The next day a great meeting was held in FaneuU HaU ; and a committee of fifteen,,headed by Sam uel Adams, was appointed to inform the governor that the inhabitants of Boston and the British soldiers could not longer live together in peace or safety. In the after noon the regular town meeting met to hear the report of the committee, who announced that they could obtain the removal of only one regiment. " Both regiments or none ! " was the shout which went up from the people ; and the committee went back again to see the frightened governor. The scene which then ensued is one of the 136 Boston. dramatic scenes of the American Revolution. In the waning light, for the day was drawing to its close, Adams stood before Hutchinson and argued the cause of the people. The governor resisted and tempor ized, retreated and advanced ; but at last he gave way altogether, and both regiments were ordered out of the town and into the fort, to be known thereafter as "Sam. Adams' regiments." Owing to the abiding sense of law and justice, which was one of the strongest features of the New England people. Captain Preston and the soldiers had a fair trial, and were defended by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, two distinguished patriots. Six of the soldiers, together with the captain, were acquitted; the two men who were found guUty were branded on the hand. The punishment was as moderate as the trial had been fair and the verdict toler ant. But while the people of Boston and Massachusetts gave the protection of the law to the men who had wronged them, and thus asserted the predominance of the civil power, they buried their dead with a great funeral procession, on the Sth of March, and celebrated the 5th of March the day of the massacre every year thereafter until the 4th of July came to take its place. A people who could show as much self-restraint as was shown by the people of Boston after the riot and bloodshed of that March evening, were far more to be dreaded than if they had rushed forward in the path then marked out, and precipitated a civU war which had no better origin than a street-fight. Revolution. 137 CHAPTER IX. REVOLUTION. The lesson of the riot in Boston streets seems plain enough now, yet the British ministers took no heed either of the meaning of the massacre itself or of the conduct of the people afterward. They seemed unable to perceive that an outbreak of this sort among such a people, ending as this had done in bloodshed, cut very deep into the ties which bound the country; that it drew, in fact, a Une between the colonies and England wMch it would be difficult to obliterate and impossible to forget. Blind also they were to the character of the people with whom they had to deal. Riots were famil iar things to any man who had dwelt in great cities ; but the rising of the citizens of a town consequent upon an affray with the troops, the removal of the soldiers com pelled by the stern attitude of these same Boston people, and then the evidence of outside power being thus or dered out of the town, the calm proceedings in the civil courts, where the men who had shed blood in the streets received a fair and impartial trial, were not common oc currences, and deserved to be carefully pondered. A people at once so determined and so self-restrained, so ready to resist a law which they deemed wrong and un constitutional, and yet so intensely law-abiding, ought to have caUed to the mind of the English ministry a fact 138 Boston. which they apparently never remembered: that these Massachusetts colonists- were of their own race and of their own flesh and blood, descended from the very men who had driven the Stuarts from England, and given her in their stead the greatest of her rulers. Very unfortu nately for themselves and for England the ministry were totally incapable of perceiving these facts, which are now plain to any one who reads the history of that time. They had wandered far from the wise policy of Sir Eobert Walpole, and they had closed their first series of experiments with America in a riot, and in the humiliating withdrawal of their troops from the town. Before the Boston Massacre had been heard of in England, indeed, upon the very day on which it oc curred, it seemed as if a faint glimmering had come upon the king and his advisers that the course they were pursuing was not the very wisest in the world, and had not thus far been productive of much that was valuable, either to themselves or to the British empire. On the 5th of March, the day so memorable in Boston, Lord North brought in a bill to repeal the Eevenue Act, with the exception of the preamble and the duty on tea. There was a suggestion of sense in this proposition, and yet all the British measures of conciliation led to the final separation of the colonies from the mother country, almost as much as the oppressive laws. They were marked invariably by one of two characteristics, or by both ; they either came too late or they did not go far enough to do any real good, making some little reserva tion which destroyed their efficacy. Lord North's repeal of the Eevenue Act belonged to the latter class. Like Revolution. 139 the repeal of the Stamp Act, it was either not worth do ing at all, or else it should have" been done completely. To reserve the principle, and to retain the duty on one article in order to demonstrate the right of Parliament to tax, was just as bad as to retain the duties on twenty articles and give up nothing. The colonies were fighting for a principle, not for relief from imposts ; and this fact which was the key to the whole situation, the British ministry, gifted with a stupidity which seems now be yond nature, and attributable only to art, never could understand. At the same time, however, the people of the various colonies, who were naturally loyal and by no means anxious to have a breach with the mother country, and who were desirous, after the fashion of mankind, to go on peaceably in their accustomed way, were quite ready to see in this partial surrender the promise of complete harmony in the future. Non-importation agreements relaxed in most of the colonies, and trade revived. Even in Massachusetts the movement in opposition to the Crown seemed to subside; but the town of Boston, which had already come into conflict with the home Government, was more on the watch than any other place in North America. In the progress of these events it had become the most con spicuous place on the continent. It had already en gaged the attention, not only of people in England, but of shrewd observers on the other side of the Chan nel ; and it was destined in a very short time to flx the attention of the civiUzed world. It looked like a ter ribly unequal conflict for the little town, determined as it was to enter upon such a contest, but it was I40 Boston. leading in a great struggle for popular rights ; and whether the people of Boston were conscious of it or not, they must have felt that in the end their cause would be that of every American colony. In September, 1770, Hutchinson received a royal order which commanded him to give up the Castle to the English troops. This he did; and the Provincial Assembly solemnly protested against it as another and added grievance. At the same time they performed a much more important act than that of entering any protest, no matter how energetic, by selecting Benja min Franklin to act as the agent of Massachusetts in England; and thus put forward the ablest man in America to present the cause of the colonies to England and to the world. The year following passed quietly. Hutchinson was at last commissioned as governor, thus attaining to the height of his ambition, and kept up more or less con troversy with the legislature, of no very great meaning or importance now. These minor controversies indeed soon dropped out of sight when it was known that the governor had accepted a salary from the king in viola tion of the charter, and by so doing had made himself independent of the people. The House passed a vote of censure upon the governor's action, although they were unable to ward off the blow. But popular wrath was inflamed still more when it became known that the judges as well were to be paid from the royal treasury, and that thus justice also was to be independent of the people for whose use the Court was established. Then the town meeting of Boston took the matter in hand. They asked the governor to inform them as to the truth Revolution. 141 of tMs report about the judges, and then they petitioned him to convene the Assembly. When this petition was rejected, they voted the reply not satisfactory ; and then at the same town meeting, where they resolved in favour of the right of petition, Samuel Adams stood up and moved that a Committee of Correspondence be appointed to state the rights of the colonies, aud to com municate and publish the same to the several towns. Thus came the movement for union, which was a thing above aU others to be dreaded by England. It be gan, where logically and scientifically speaking it ought to have begun, in a New England town meeting; and its first effort was toward uniting the other New England towns, which by their independent local gov ernments were pecuUarly fitted for poUtical combina tions. The towns responded, and the arguments of the committee spread beyond the limits which had been proposed, as undoubtedly was the intention of their framers, and were received eagerly in all the other colonies. The movement toward an American union was fairly on foot. Even yet, however, the final conflict might have been long delayed had it not been for the duty on tea, which had been left by the wise ministry simply as an emblem of Parliamentary sovereignty. It is a risky business to erect monuments in the form of laws ; for one can never teU when a law which is meant to remain merely as an expression of opinion, may be put into active operation. Such was now found to be the case. Early in the year 1773, the East India Company discovered that the American non-importation agree ments had had the melancholy effect of obUging them 142 Boston. to accumulate their teas in England, and they found themselves thus confronted with the prospect of no market and heavy losses. They therefore pushed an Act through Parliament authorizing them to export their teas without paying duty in England, which would enable them as they believed to sell the teas so cheaply in America that the colonies could not withstand the temptation, since the reduction would more than make up for the tax imposed by the Eevenue Act. The com pany accordingly despatched tea-ships to Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, with cargoes con signed to merchants in those cities. This was another piece of stupidity. Why the British ministers should have imagined for a moment that the Americans would not perceive at once that this was an attempt to make them pay the duty and concede the principle for which they had been contending, it is difficult to understand. If they laboured under any such delusion they were very soon to find out their mistake. The town of Boston, at aU events, was resolved that there should be no misapprehension as to the cargoes shipped to that port. A popular meeting first demanded that the con signees should resign, which was refused. Then a town meeting was held on the 5th of November, at which John Hancock presided, and resolves were passed like those which had been adopted in Philadelphia. The consignees also were again asked to resign, and again refused. About a fortnight later news came that the tea-ships might be expected at any moment, and on the 18th of November another town meeting was held ; once more the consignees were asked to resign, and once more they refused. Thereupon the meeting dis- Revolution. 143 solved without taking any action, without passing any vote, and without expressing any further opinion, — an ominous silence which seems to have been more im pressive to the consignees than anything else. When the ship '' Dartmouth " arrived on Sunday, the 28th of November, the Committee of Correspondence and the people were quite prepared for the crisis which was upon them. The Puritans and their descendants were very rigid in their observance of Sunday, but even their religious scruples gave way to political necessi ties. The Committee of Correspondence obtained a promise from Eotch, the owner of the "Dartmouth," that it should not be entered until Tuesday ; and the towns about Boston were invited to attend a mass- meeting iu FaneuU HaU the next day. So many men came in answer to the call that the meeting was obliged to adjourn to the Old South Church, where it was re solved that the tea should be sent back, and that no duty should be paid. At the adjourned meeting in the afternoon Mr. Eotch protested, but was told that if he entered the tea he would do so at his peril ; and a watch of twenty-five persons was appointed to guard the ship. On Tuesday the consignees declared that they had not the power to send the tea back, but were ready to store it. Thereupon the governor issued a proclamation warning the meeting to disperse, which was treated with entire contempt. Then the consignees and the captain agreed that the tea should be returned, an agreement to which the owners of the other ships also gave their consent. Soon after the two other ships ap peared, and were anchored near the "Dartmouth," so that they could aU be guarded together. The ships 144 Boston. could not be cleared from Boston with the tea on board, nor could they be entered in England. The people wanted to have the ships returned peaceably, and the consignees were now quite wiUing to yield; but Hutchinson would not give a permit, and the soldiers in the Castle prepared to resist their passage. The time at which the tea would be seized under the law and brought on shore was fast drawing near, but the last day was reached and the Collector of Customs still refused absolutely to grant a clearance to the ships, unless the teas were discharged. This was Thursday, the 16th of December. The Old South Church was crowded with people, and Eotch appeared and reported that a clearance had been refused to him. He was then asked to go once more to the governor, which he did ; and while he was gone the crowd increased until by the afternoon over seven thousand people were gathered in and about the church. The short winter day was draw ing to a close, and the dimly lighted church grew darker and darker, while the people waited, determined to know the end. At last Eotch appeared again, and re ported that the governor would not give a pass. The moment he had concluded his report Samuel Adams arose and said, " This meeting can do nothing more to save the country." The words were of course a signal. A shout was heard in the street, and some forty or fifty men disguised as Indians rushed by the door and down toward the wharves, followed by the people. The " Mohawks," as they were called, rushed on board the tea-ships and threw the chests of tea into the bay. No violence was committed, and no tea was taken ; the cargoes were simply destroyed so that they could never Revolution. 145 be landed. It was a picturesque refusal on the part of the people of Boston to pay the tax. It was also something more. It was the sudden appearance, in a world tired of existing systems of government, of the power of the people in action. The expression may have been rude, and the immediate result trivial, but the act was none the less of the gravest consequence. It was the small beginning of the great democratic move ment which has gone forward ever since, and which it would have been well for English statesmen who were then concerned with it to have pondered deeply. The Boston people well knew what their act meant ; for this was not the doing of a riotous street-mob, but of the whole body of the citizens, led by their ablest men. It was a defiance to the British govern ment. That act performed, only two things were possible : the British Crown was obliged either to yield and confess itself defeated, or to carry out its laws by suppressing colonial liberty with all the force at its command. No man who understood the situation could doubt for a moment what that choice would be, nor can we wonder that the British ministry determined to resort to force. It was through their blundering that such a situation had been created ; but, as the situation actually existed, it was hardly to be expected that they, representing as they did the power of Great Britain, would meekly yield to the resistance of a single colonial town. The news of the destruction of the tea aroused a deep interest in England, aud the ministry at once set about meeting the issue which they had thus forced into existence. That they should undert£|.ke to 10 146 Boston. vindicate the power of the Crown and uphold the laws was, from their point of view, wholly natural ; but they went about their work with the stupidity which characterized themx at every stage of the American Eevolution. Not content to take suitable measures to enforce the laws, they set aside all laws, all precedents, and every constitutional tradition ; and without waiting to investigate the case, or hear what could be said in defence, they brought in the Boston Port Bill to sus pend the trade and close the harbour of the rebellious town. It was an unjust measure, as foolish too as it was unjust, and was strongly opposed by Burke and the other Whigs, who had not yet lost their heads over the American question. So far as appearance went, it was at first directed against Boston alone ; but not content with this, the ministry, with a folly which it is difficult to understand, proceeded to pass what were known as the Eegulation and Eestriction Acts, to regulate the government of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which destroyed the charter, and deprived the people of the institutions and liberties to which they had become accustomed. Thus they held up to every other colony the threat that the same fate might befall them at any moment. By this simple ex pedient they made the cause of Boston and of Massa chusetts the cause of every town and every colony on the Atlantic seaboard. The union of the colonies was the one thing which was sure to prove fatal to British supremacy. The policy of the Committee of Correspon dence had made this union possible. The action of the British ministry made it inevitable. In this way the struggle began, which was not only Revolution. 147 the most memorable event in the history of Boston, but one of the most memorable events of modern times, and which at the moment arrayed the forces of the British empire against this single colonial town. It was true that behind the town was the colony, and behind the colony of Massachusetts were the other twelve colonies, stretching from Maine to Georgia. It was true, also, that these thirteen colonies were soon to make common cause, and that the fate of one was to be the fate of all ; but somewhere the first blow had to fall, and it was necessary that some community should stand up alone and meet the first shock. This was the lot of Boston ; and her people entered upon the struggle with the same determination which they had exhibited in aU the preUminary controversies. They must have perceived quite as plainly as we can see it now that much suffering was before them, that the odds against them were overwhelming, and that there were many things to be endured before the continent should be in arms ; but they faced the situation unfliuchingly, and re fused to yield on any point. The policy of the ministry was emphasized by the removal of Hutchinson and the appointment of General Gage, who was also commander of the forces. This substitution of a soldier for a civil ian indicated plainly enough what was intended ; but nevertheless Hutchinson was so detested by his own people, who regarded him not only as an enemy but as a traitor, that they hailed his departure with rejoic ing, and welcomed his successor, soldier though he was, with no little cordiality. The Port Bill, which was really the first act of war on the part of England, fell upon Boston with cruel 148 Boston. severity. As it was pre-eminently a trading town, with the cutting off of its commerce, all business practicaUy ceased, the warehouses were empty, and the ships lay idle at the wharves. The only sails which now whitened the harbour were those of the English men- of-war, and even tbe ferries were not allowed to ply to the neighbouring towns. The other seaboard towns in Massachusetts, however, refused to take advantage of the misfortunes of the capital, and one and all united in sending relief to its inhabitants while they offered to its merchants the use of their wharves and storehouses. On the patriots' side actual government devolved largely on the Committee of Correspondence; and when the legislature met at Salem, for rebeUious Boston could no longer be the seat of government, the one purpose in every one's mind was to take steps for calling a Continental Congress. Gage sent a messenger to dissolve the House, but the members held the door against him ; and before his message was delivered they had issued a call to the other colonies. Then and not till then the legislature dissolved, to meet no more under the English Crown. Gage met this action, which really meant the severance of the British empire, with a proclamation against the non-importation agreement, which was more distinguished by bad temper than by anything else. Soon after, in fact before the summer was half over, he carried out the Eegulation and Eestriction Acts, by which the provincial charter and all the institutions of Massachusetts were swept away. That which had been put in their place was shown by the appearance of large military forces, which were now necessary to sustain a government that had no popular support. Re vol ution. i 49 Four regiments and three companies of artillery were on Boston Common. Another regiment was at Fort HUl, and other companies at the Castle. Another regi ment was at Salem, to protect the Government, whose source of power was in England; while still other troops were at Danvers, to watch over the governor. Thus, so far as proclamation could do it, the will of Parliament had been carried out ; but the people of the colony had not yielded a jot, and the new acts had no effect beyond the lines of the English soldiers. The courts could not sit, for no jurors would serve, and the people paid no attention to the measures of Par liament, but busied themselves with methods for re sisting them. Under the lead of Joseph Warren the county of Suffolk held a meeting, and adopted what were known as the Suffolk Eesolves, in which all Par liamentary officers appointed under the acts were re jected, collectors of taxes were forbidden to pay money into the royal treasury, and towns were advised to choose only patriots for the militia ; a Provincial Con gress was also demanded, and obedience was promised to the Continental Congress. The people in these re solves, while they deprecated anything like riot or attacks upon property, threatened to seize every Crown officer if the governor should dare to arrest anybody; and they sent their resolutions in a memorial to the Continental Congress at Thiladelphia, which recom mended them to the people of the country at large as a practical method of meeting the crisis which had arisen. Gage was not a particularly able man, nor was he a very good soldier ; but in this state of affairs even 1 50 Boston. Gage could see that war might come at any moment. He therefore began to seize the arms and munitions of war belonging to the Province, wherever he could lay his hand upon them, and to fortify Boston. He refused to let the legislature sit ; and they accordingly resolved themselves into a Provincial Congress, and appointed a Committee of Safety and a Committee of Supplies, so that both sides were now arming with such ability as they possessed. New regiments came to Gage until he had some four to five thousand men under his command ; and the Americans on their part began to enroll " minute-men " in every town, ready to resist the first attack. Gage attempted to stop this arming and collection of stores, but failed in the various expeditions which he sent out both to the north and south of Boston, until at last the time came when the inevitable blow was struck and the inevitable conflict begun. In the early spring Gage determined to seize the cannon and other munitions of war belonging to the Province, which had been stored by the patriots at Concord; or, as some said at the time, he aimed to get possession of the persons of Samuel Adams and John Hancock. His movements to this end were con ducted with as much secrecy as was possible to any military movement, and on the night of the 18th of April, eight hundred troops 'were embarked at the foot of Boston Common and rowed across to East Cambridge. The British supposed that this movement was un known, although it is difficult to see how they could have imagined that such a thing could be possible. The proposed expedition was not only known, but Revolution. 151 the line of march as well, and exactly what was in tended. The knowledge also was in the hands of men who knew what to do with it. There were thirty mechanics of Boston who had enrolled themselves as a kind of volunteer committee to watch over the British. At their head was Paul Eevere. When it was known that the British were intending to move, Eevere crossed with his horse from Boston to Charlestown, and there saw the signal lantern, which had been already hoisted in the belfry of Christ Church, by a singular irony of fate, the Church of Eng land and of Episcopacy. Eevere, when he descried the light, at once mounted and rode away. His companion Eufus Dawes, who had started on the same errand, was stopped ; but Eevere eluded his pursuers and rode rapidly on through the night, arousing the people in the sleeping villages as he passed, until he had reached Concord. In the mean time, the troops sent out by Gage had started, and early in the morning of the 19th of April, a day forever memorable to the English- speaking world, they met a smaU and hastily gathered body of minute-men on the Green at Lexington. As the farmers and the soldiers faced each other. Major Pitcairn cried out, "Disperse, ye villains! ye rebels!" Then, as the rebels did not disperse, the troops fired. There was an irregular return of their shot, the handful of minute-men scattered, and war with England had begun. After this affray, which could hardly be called even a skirmish, the British troops pressed on to Concord. The stores had been removed, aud their errand was in vain. But again the minute-men turned out ; and this 152 Boston. time they stood their ground better and there was some thing more like a fight. British soldiers as well as American farmers were left dead upon the field, near the famous bridge, and then the British took up the Une of their retreat to Boston. By this time the coun try was thoroughly aroused. From behind stone walls and trees along the whole line of march, the minute- men, fighting each man for himself, hung in ever- increasing numbers upon the flanks of the retreating army. The soldiers were unable to cope with them, or even to meet them; and dropped under their fire at every step. When the British reached Lexington they met Lord Percy, with reinforcements ; and there shel tered by these fresh troops they threw themselves upon the ground, utterly worn out, having suffered severely along the whole line of their retreat. Lord Percy and his detachment had left Boston early in the morning, having been ordered to start when it became known that the expedition of the night before had come to the knowledge of the patriots, who were prepared to meet it. He had marched out over Eox- bury Neck, and thence across to Cambridge. As he passed through Boston and Eoxbury with his band playing "Yankee Doodle," a boy in the streets called out, "You go out to 'Yankee Doodle' and you'U come back to 'Chevy Chase,'" — a more apt allusion to both the facts of the case and the family history of the Percys than the boy was probably aware. Delayed by the ill management which was characteristic of the British operations in America, Percy was too late to save the earlier expedition from a disastrous retreat ; but he was in time to preserve them from absolute annihilation. Revolution. 153 When the flying troops had been rescued and had rested, Percy took up again the line of march for Boston, making for the town this time by the way of Charles town. The minute-men were on his flanks too, and troops from as distant points as Essex had reached his line of march. It was with difficulty that he succeeded in bringing his command into a place of safety ; and he did not do e^n this without serious additional losses. The fights of the 19th of April did more than bring on actual war between England and her colonies ; they aroused the towns of Massachusetts and New England from one end to the other. The minute-men poured in from all directions and with so much rapidity that on the following day they were gathered about Boston in such numbers that Gage never sent out another expedition, and what is caUed the siege of Boston began. The EngUsh troops were shut up in what then constituted the city limits, which have now spread far beyond the territory occupied by Gage and his soldiers. If such a man as Eobert Clive or Arthur Wellesley had been in Boston with four to five thousand men, these fine English regiments with the command of the sea would never have remained there in feeble inactivity untU they were at last driven to their boats in humiliation and defeat. They would have at least done some ag gressive fighting. Every advantage of position, of equipment, of force, and of organization, belonged to the British. They had regular troops, weU disciplined, well armed, furnished with every necessary of life, and sup ported by a fleet which had absolute command of the sea. Opposed to them were about twice the number of militia, — brave men undoubtedly, and ready to flght, 154 Boston. but unorganized, undisciplined, without stores or muni tions of war, and unaccustomed to battle. It was some time before the Americans were even put under a single command ; and yet while Gage rested and did nothing, the minute-men made raids upon the outlying posts of Boston and upon the islands of the harbour, where they destroyed the houses and farms, carried off the British supplies, burned a schooner with four guns on board, and made the position of the invaders as uncomfortable as possible. All that Gage and Howe did was to fortify the town carefully, a precaution which they took with the ut most thoroughness ; while the great body of the inhabi tants who sympathized with the patriot cause slipped out into the country, and all the scattered Tories, who were not very numerous, slipped in. This delay not only enabled the American generals to encourage their men by various successful raids, but also brought to them something like cohesion and the habit of acting together. There also came to Gage in the time of wait ing powerful reinforcements under the command of Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne, which raised his total force to some eleven thousand men; but still he ne glected not only to assail the besiegers, but even to take possession of positions which commanded the town. The two principal points of this character were Dorchester Heights and Charlestown, lying respectively to the south and the north of the city, and both were neglected. The Americans were more prompt. On the night of the 16th of June, General Ward, who was now in com mand of all the colonial forces, sent a detachment under Revolution. 155 Colonel Prescott, together with some Connecticut men under Captain Knowlton, to take possession of Charles town. They stopped on the top of Bunker Hill, and then after some discussion decided to advance half a mile farther, to Breed's Farm, where the hill sloped toward the south, and whence they could command the town and shipping better. There they laid out a redoubt, at which they worked from midnight to eleven o'clock in the morning ; while on the left they made a rude breastwork, which was known as the raU fence, at which the Connecticut men were stationed. The British were alarmed at dawn by the sight of the redoubt, but the morning was far spent when they began to move, and it was noon when General Howe crossed with two thousand men and advanced against the breast works on the hill. The Americans held their fire as the British came up the slope; and only when the troops were almost at the edge of the earthwork, did they open upon the British lines. The slaughter was terrible, and the British gave way in confusion ; while their loss at the rail fence was even more severe. The Americans thought that aU was over, and that they had nothing to do but pursue the flying foe ; but their officers restrained them, knowing weU that another assault would be made. Howe then had the village of Charlestown set on fire, re formed his broken lines, and charged again. The result was the same, and if anything the loss was heavier. Again the Americans held their fire, delivering it at the last moment with terrible effect, and again the British fled in disorder, both from the fence and the redoubt. Once more Howe re-formed his line ; and this time he advanced his field-pieces to the north, so as to 156 Boston. rake the redoubt. He then charged again, telling his men to use only the bayonet. The Americans received them as before, and the British line staggered for a mo ment; but the powder of the minute-men had given out, the redoubt was now open to the fire of the field- pieces on the north, and the colonists gave way as the British swarmed over the embankment. The last stand was made at the rail fence, where Stark of New Hamp shire covered the retreat of the great body of the Ameri cans. Prescott was furious that the reinforcements which had been promised had not been sent; but Ward can hardly be blamed for not sending troops when he knew, and did not dare to let any one else know, that there were only three rounds of powder to a man in the American camp. Thus ended the battle of Bunker Hill. The British were in possession of the field; they had carried the po sition at the point of the bayonet, and the victory was technicaUy theirs. Nevertheless, the real victory, and all the solid results of success, rested with the Ameri cans. In the first place, although only a small number of troops had been engaged, the loss had been frightful on the side of the British. They had a thousand men killed and wounded, while the Americans had only lost between four and five hundred. Then it must also be remembered that the British troops fought with the greatest possible courage. A storming party in which a single company of one regiment lost every man in killed and wounded, is indubitable proof of the gal lantry of the assault, and of the quality of the men who made it. The British superiority in discipline and numbers was balanced no doubt in part by the Ameri- Revolution. 157 can advantage of position, and of fighting behind breast works ; but it is also true that the breastworks and the raU fence were defences of the flimsiest character, and ser\'ed really for Uttle more than to give to the miUtia the concentration and confidence which they might have lacked in the open field. Thus the odds were on the whole decidedly in favor of the British, and yet their loss more than doubled that of the colonists, wMle the difference in percentage of loss as compared with the total numbers engaged was stUI more to the advantage of the Americans. The greatest disaster to England, however, involved in the fight at Bunker HUl was the fact that it convinced the people of America that they could and would fight when they were put to it, and that they could defeat British troops if only they stood their ground. Washington, then on his way to take command of the American forces before Boston, knew in a moment what the single important point was in this battle. "When the messenger bearing the news of Bunker HUl met him, the one question was, " Did the militia fight ? " When he was told that they did fight, and how they fought, he said : " Then the Uberties of the country are saved." "While the British were recovering from the shock of Bunker HiU, and the people who remained in Boston were looking for the first time on the grim sight of real war, Washington was posting, with all the speed that was possible, to take charge of the troops. He reached Cambridge on the 3d of July, and under the his toric elm, drew his sword and took command of the soldiers gathered there, to regain the capital of New England. No longer were thej minute-men, called 158 Boston. hastily together to resist invasion, but the American Army ; and the coming of Washington was the signal for the change. The battle, which Boston had begun, had become a national conflict, out of which a new nation was to arise. It is unnecessary here to trace in detail the historj'' of the siege which followed ; for the important part of that siege was enacted in the American lines outside of Boston, where Washington, grappling with im measurable difficulties, tightened his grip upon the enemy in the town. There through the trying summer and winter he brought order out of chaos, and organiza tion out of confusion. He turned rough militia com panies into an effective fighting force, he concealed the lack of gunpowder, so that the British seemed never to have realized the almost helpless weakness of their opponents ; he planned distant campaigns against other parts of the British domains, swept in munitions of war from every corner which he could reach, and finally sent Knox to bring guns from Ticonderoga across the snow, in the dead of winter, to Boston. In the mean time the British troops lived on in Bos ton, whence a very large proportion of the inhabitants had fled. There was iUness and destitution in the town, and the British soldiers, by way of adding to the desola tion of the time, pulled down houses for firewood and turned into a riding-school the church where genera tions had prayed, and where in recent years men had met in defence of their Uberties. The English amused themselves after the fashion of a garrison, with balls and parties, and with plays, which were performed in Faneuil HaU. They were more successful at these Revolution. 159 things than at flghting, or coping with the great soldier who held them in his grasp. They had eleven thou sand men and a fleet of ships, and yet they allowed the genius of one man to shut them up in helpless in action. They gave Washington time, and they could have given him no more precious gift ; for, with time, he got his cannon aud his gunpowder, and then he needed no waiting or suggestions to discover what he ought to do. In his impatience to assault the British, he already had proposed various plans of a more or less desperate character to his council; but now at last when he was armed, he moved rapidly forward upon the enemy. On the evening of the 4th of March, 1776, after hav ing kept up for a day or two a heavy cannonade to dis tract the attention of the besieged, he marched a body of men to Dorchester Heights, of which he took possession, and where he began at once to throw up intrench- ments. There, under the eager leadership of Washing ton himself, the men worked aU night long ; and when morning came, the British, taken completely by surprise, beheld formidable works, growing every moment more impregnable, frowning over the town. Howe intended to attack them on Wednesday, but a storm came up ; the men did not start, and afterward it was too late. Washington threatened to open fire, and by way of hint sent a few shots into the town. Thereupon, the Eng lish made up their minds that the end was upon them, but they continued to hesitate in action. Still Wash ington kept advancing his works ; and on the 8th, Howe sent out a flag of truce, in which he assured Washing ton that he intended to withdraw, and that he would i6o Boston. not injure the town, unless he was interfered with. Washington replied, saying that the assurance had no authority and bound no one. No other communication passed, however, and Washington did not attempt to push the bombardment seriously, as he felt confident that the British would retreat, and he did not wish to destroy the town. The result was that on the I7th of March, Howe, with Ms whole army, sailed away for Halifax, and the siege of Boston was at an end. Wash ington marched in at the head of the American troops, and then very soon marched away again, to carry the cause of the Eevolution to victory in other parts of the continent. So far as Boston was concerned, the flghting of the Eevolution was over. The men of Boston and Massa chusetts fought in every engagement, almost, of the six years of war which followed ; but they had had their turn as a colony, and there was no more fighting on their own soil. They had been the first in the field, and had suffered proportionately. The flourishing colonial town, with more than twenty-flve thousand inhabitants, which had celebrated with such rejoicing the repeal of the Stamp Act, was a dismal-looking place when Washington came in at the head of his victorious army. Houses had been burned and torn down in every direc tion. Pestilence and privation had done their work, and trade, industry, and commerce had been destroyed. The population was reduced to less than ten thousand people. The Patriots, who composed much the larger element of the population, had for the most part gone out at the beginning of the contest, and many never returned. When Howe saUed away, he took with Mm Revolution. i6i nearly a thousand persons who were attached to the Crown, while others of Uke predilections had slipped off in other directions. This Tory emigration made a serious alteration in the character of the town. Most persons of wealth, the leaders in society and in politics in Boston, were Eoyalists, and remained loyal to England. When they went, they left a great gap. The only one of their number who had been conspicuous on the Patriot side was John Hancock. Samuel Adams was of old Puri tan stock, but was not identified with the rich and office-holding classes of Boston. The other men who led in the Eevolution were from the counties ; and it was from the counties that the people came who filled the places of the Tories who had gone. The loyalists who remained in Boston were few in number, and kept themselves very quiet ; while the society which arose after the Revolution was composed of the leaders from the smaller towns, and from the country. The mer chants of Salem and Newburyport, the squires and magistrates and judges of the interior counties were the men who now came to the capital and took the places of the leaders who had either departed or been discredited. In the country everybody high and low, with but few exceptions, espoused the Patriot cause, for in Massachusetts the Tory element was almost wholly confined to a single large town; and it was therefore upon that town that the loss of population entailed by civil war fell. In this way it came about that the society which grew up in Boston after the Eevolution was chiefly made up of persons who were not identified with the 11 1 62 Boston. Boston of the colonial and provincial days. The body of the population which came in, also came from the country. Many of them were families who simply returned to their old dwelling-places ; others were people who had before lived in some outlying town, and who now came to Boston to better their condi tion, or for some similar reason. But the siege marked a great change in the life of Boston. It went into the struggle with England a rich, thriving provincial town, with a fashionable society attached to the Crown, and a rich Puritan element, not, perhaps, given to aU the ways of Crown officials, but equally loyal to the English Government. It came out with its population reduced more than one half, and with its upper class swept away, while those who remained were weakened by disease, and impoverished by the long occupation of foreign troops and the cessation of aU business. Boston had done its work in the American Eevolu tion, and had paid a heavy price in the short time that it had been engaged. It really seemed as if the growth and progress of nearly a hundred years had been overthrown in the few months of the struggle with Eng land. But the people set themselves to putting their homes in order, and to repairing their broken fortunes, with characteristic energy ; so that the town began to rally slowly but surely from its misfortunes. The tide of war did not again break upon Boston, so that it had time to collect itself, and to gather strength for future successes, even while the Eevolution was still in progress, and before pdace came to bring once more security to business and prosperity to the people. Federalist Boston. 163 CHAPTEE X.1 federalist BOSTON. Between the Treaty of Peace at Paris in 1782-1783, which acknowledged American Independence, and the change of local government in Boston from the form of a town to that of a city, forty years elapsed. That period was to Boston a season of growth and prosperity ; the former slow, the latter brilliant at times, and at times clouded by the storms of the great wars which then shook the civilized world. The heroic period in the his tory of the town in its corporate capacity closed when Washington marched in at the head of Ms army and Lord Howe saUed out of Boston harbour. In the years preceding that event, Boston had been the most impor tant name in the long list of English possessions. It had figured in the newspapers, in the conferences of cabinets, and the debates of Parliament with unrivalled frequency ; it had lighted the flame of resistance, endured the first stroke of angry rulers, and had witnessed the first dis aster to the British arms. During the Eevolution, Bos ton, untouched after the first shock of war had passed 1 This chapter has already appeared in the " Memorial History of Boston," to which it was originally contributed. I owe to Messrs. Ticknor and Company the privilege of using it in this volume ; and I desire to express to them my thanks for their courtesy, which has been to me of most essential service. 1 64 Boston. away, had her share of glory and suffering; but she ceased to be the central point of resistance, or to attract further the attention of England and Europe. In the forty years which followed the close of the war, the old town, as such, took no memorable action, with one or two rare exceptions, which will be described in their place. During this period, therefore, the history of Boston was, in its most salient features, interwoven with that of national politics, and, above all, with the fate of a great political party, which there found some of its ablest and most steadfast leaders, and which there, too, preserved longer than anywhere else an almost unbroken ^scendency. The history of the town, then, at this time was to a large extent the history of a party and of the men who composed and led it. In those days subjects of interest were few in the extreme. The fortunes of the. Bostonians were involved in commerce, enterprising, far-reaching, and successful; but it may be fairly said that apart from business and professional work, almost the only intellectual excitement was found in politics ; and to politics, consequently, all the strongest and ablest men of the community turned their zealous atten tion. To understand the history of Boston during the period included between 1782 aud 1822, it is necessary, if we wish to set in strong relief the characteristic fea tures of the time, and not to wander in a tangled maze of valueless details, to study the fortunes of the ruling political party in the town. In that party, or in oppo sition to it, we must sooner or later meet with every man of importance ; in their contests we must deal with every question which affected the interests of the town as well as those of the State or Nation; and thus we Federalist Boston. 165 cannot fail to comprehend the general character of the life and society of that day and generation. The peace of 1782 found Boston shorn of many of the attributes which had made her the first among the towns of the EngUsh colonies in America. The popula tion, which before the war had numbered about twenty- five thousand, sank, as has been said, at the time of the siege to less than ten thousand, comprising only those absolutely unable to get away ; and when peace came, it had risen to but little over twelve thousand. Mili tary occupation, pestilence, and the flight of the Tory party had done their work, and had more than deci mated the people. Commerce, the main support of the inhabitants, suffered severely in the war, and had been only partially replaced by the uncertain successes of the privateers. The young men had beeu drawn away to the army ; both State and Confederacy were practically bankrupt ; and the disorganization consequent upon seven years of civil war was great and disastrous. Bos ton was brought face to face with this gloomy condition of her affairs when the long strain of the Eevolution was removed by the Treaty of Paris, and her people, with characteristic energy, set to work at once to remedy their misfortunes. Again the harbour was whitened with the sails of merchant-ships, once more the trades began to flourish with their old activity in shop and ship-yard, and the old bustle and movement were seen anew in the streets ; but there was much weary work to be done be fore tbe ravages of war could be repaired. Ten years elapsed before the population reached the point at which it stood prior to the Eevolution; and in that decade both town and State had much to endure in settling 1 66 Boston. the legacies always bequeathed to a community by civil strife. The adjustment of social, financial, and political balances, after such a wrenching of the body politic, was a slow and in some respects a harsh and trying process, and many years passed before a condition of stable equilibrium was again attained. The mere fact of revolution implies, of course, a re arrangement of classes in any community to a greater or less extent. Some reference has been made to this in the preceding chapter, but it is appropriate to consider it here in more detail, if the Ufe of the town during this period is to be rightly understood. In the provincial times, although the political system and theory of Massachusetts were democratic, there was a vigorous and powerful aristocracy holding all the ap pointed and many of the elective offices, and recognized as leaders in public affairs. As a rule, this provincial aristocracy, which had its headquarters in Boston, was strongly in sympathy with the Crown, and abandoned the country on the success of the Patriots, either in the great flight which took place when Howe evacuated Boston, or singly, when opportunity offered. Their estates were confiscated, and they themselves took ref uge for the most part in the northern provinces, and sometimes in England; but wherever they were, their loyalty was remembered, and they were aided by the EngUsh government. Here and there exceptions to this rule could, of course, be found, — as notably in the case of John Hancock and the Quincys ; although even in the latter family of Patriots one distinguished member was a Tory, and went into exile in consequence. There were a few others of this class who, while their sympa- Federalist Boston. 167 thies were with England, managed to preserve a judicious neutrality, and remained in their native town, suspected by many, and stripped of all political power, but retain ing their social position, and after many years regaining some portion of their infiuence. These remnants of the provincial aristocracy however were at best insignificant, and new men had ample openings in the great gaps which war had made. The new men, of course, came; and equally, of course, they were the leaders of the successful Eevolution. They were not, however, as commonly happens in such cases, drawn from the class immediately below that which had been overthrown. The country aristocracy, the squires and gentry of the small towns and viUages, unlike their brethren of the capital, had been as a rule on the side of resistance to England, and had furnished most of the Eevolutionary leaders. When their battle was won, many of them came up from their counties and settled in Boston, occupying the places of their banished opponents, and not in frequently by cheap purchases becoming possessors of the confiscated homes of the exiles. To this class, which, to borrow a very famous name, may be not in aptly styled the Country party, belonged, for example^ the Adamses and Fisher Ames from Norfolk, the Pres- cotts from Middlesex, and the SulUvans from New Hampshire ; whUe from Essex, most prolific of all, came the Parsonses, Pickerings, Lees, Jacksons, Cabots, Low ells, Grays, and Elbridge Gerry. These men and their families rapidly filled the places left vacant in society by the old supporters of the Crown, and, of course, already possessed the political power which they had gained by the victories of the Eevolution. This new 1 68 Boston. aristocracy maintained for many years the ascendency in public affairs which had been held by their prede cessors, but their tenure, weakened by the ideas de veloped in the Eevolution, was more precarious ; and although they dictated the policy of the State for nearly half a century, their power as a class broke down and disappeared before the rapid rise and spread of democ racy during the lifetime of the next generation. The Patriot party, the Whigs of the Eevolution, triumphed so completely by the result of the war that they found themselves not only masters of the field in 1782, but absolutely unopposed. In their own num bers party divisions were in due time formed, and we can detect the germ of those divisions, even before the peace, in the convention which met at Boston in 1780 to frame a constitution for Massachusetts. The old chiefs as a rule leaned, as might be expected, to popular and dem ocratic views ; but what was more important, they be longed, Uke Sam Adams, to the class of minds which can destroy, but which cannot construct. The younger leaders, on the other hand, belonged to the coming pe riod of reconstruction, when a new fabric of politics and society was to be built up, and were more conserva tive and less democratic than those whom they had fol lowed in the conflict with England. The first serious division of opinion in the Patriot party grew out of the difficulties engendered by the war. The heaviest bur dens were financial. Debts, public and private, weighed severely upon the State, and upon nearly every member of the community. General insolvency, in fact, pre vailed. The war had drained the country of specie ; the Continental paper was worthless, and that of the State Federalist Boston. 169 not much better. The scarcity of a decent circulating medium was in fact so great that payments in kind were legalized. To thinking men it was already obvious that a strong central government, stability, order in the public finances, and a vigorous administration, both State and National, were essential to drag the country out of the chaos of floating debts, repudiation, and ir redeemable currency, and to knit once more the politi cal bonds, almost dissolved by war. To effect such results was no easy matter. Society and public opinion had been grievously shaken, and old habits had been loosened and weakened. As always happens in times of distress and depres sion, there were many among the more ignorant of the community who mistook effect for cause. They were poor and in debt ; and in the means adopted by their creditors to coUect debts through the usual legal ma chinery, they believed they saw the source of their sufferings. The popular feeling of discontent in the western part of Massachusetts, therefore, began as early as 1782 to express itself in resistance to law and to the courts. Matters went on from bad to worse ; violence and force became more and more common ; the power of the State was crippled ; and at last it all culminated in the insurrection known in our history as Shays's EebelUon, which was directed against the courts and the enforcement of the laws, and which not only threat ened the existence of the commonwealth, but shook to its foundations the unstable fabric of the Confederacy. WhUe the storm was gathering, John Hancock, the popular hero and governor, not fancying the prospect opening before the State, and the consequent difficulties I70 Boston. and dangers likely to beset the chief magistrate, took himself out of the way, and the younger and more con servative element in politics elected James Bowdoin in his stead. It was a fortunate choice in every way. Bowdoin was a wise, firm, courageous man, perfectly ready to sacrifice popularity, if need be, to the public good. He was warmly supported in Boston, as the prin ciples and objects of Shays and his followers were pecu liarly obnoxious to a business community. The alarm in the town was very great, for it looked as if their con test for freedom was about to result iu anarchy. The young men came forward, armed themselves, and volun teered for service ; but the governor's firmness was all that was needed, and General Lincoln, at the head of the mili tia, easily crushed the feeble mob gathered by Shays, whose followers were entirely dispersed. Nevertheless, the rioters represented, although in a very extreme fashion, the general sentiment of the State, demoralized and shaken by civil war ; and this fact was shown by the almost criminal delay of the lower branch of the legis lature in sustaining the governor in his efforts to main tain order, and by their reluctance to declare the insurgents in rebellion, — a step forced upon them by the vigour of the governor and senate. This unhappy condition of public opinion was still more strongly manifested at the next election. The issue was made up between pardon and sympathy for the rebels on the one side, and just and salutary punishment on the other. The conservative party, in favour of the latter course, put forward Bowdoin ; while Hancock, who had been under shelter, now came forward once more to catch the popular support as the advocate of mercy, Federalist Boston 171 which another and braver man had alone earned the right to dispense. Hancock had chosen his time well Popular feeling in the country districts was with the in surgents, and Bowdoin was defeated ; although Boston, now thoroughly in the hands of the younger and more conservative party, strongly sustained him. Thus the new party of order and reconstruction started in Boston, which continued to be its headquarters, and gradually extending its influence, first through the eastern towns, and then to the west, came finally to control the State. The Shays Eebellion did more, however, than decide" the elections in Massachusetts. It was without doubt an efficient cause in promoting the convention at Phila delphia which framed the constitution of the United States, and in frightening into concurrent action the decrepit and obstructive Congress of the Confederation. The ratification of the constitution submitted by the delegates who met in Philadelphia to establish a central government and a better union of the States was an event of national as weU as local importance, for the adhesion of the great State of Massachusetts was essential to success. Boston was the scene of the protracted struggle in the State convention, which was held to consider this momentous question, first in Brattle Street Church, stUl bearing the marks of Washington's cannon, later in the State House, and later still in the meeting-house iu Long Lane. The town itself was, of course, deeply interested in the result, and was strongly in favour of the constitution ; but the details of the long conflict which ended in its ratification by Massa chusetts, do not immediately concern this history. The conservative elements, which had begun to take a 172 Boston. party shape in the Shays Eebellion, then and there developed into a strong and homogeneous body in support of the constitution. They had an arduous battle to fight, and they fought it well. Against them were arrayed all the sympathizers with the late in surrection, besides many who had actually taken part in it, and who, having tasted the sweets of incipient anarchy, were averse to anything like strong govern ment. There can be no doubt that at the outset public feeling and a majority of the convention were against the constitution, while at the same time the great leaders of the revolutionary period, Hancock and Adams, were lukewarm. By ability in debate, by perseverance, by managing and flattering Hancock, these difficulties were gradually overcome ; whUe to gain the earnest and active support of Adams, the popular sentiment of Boston was invoked. The me chanics of the town, under the lead of Paul Eevere, held a great meeting at the Green Dragon Tavern, on Union Street, and passed resolutions in favour of the constitution. This was the voice of an oracle to which Adams had often appealed in trying times ; and its utterance now weighed with him, and changed cool and critical approval to active support. Perhaps it decided the fate of the constitution ; for the great influence of Adams may well have counted for much in a close majority of only nineteen votes. The adoption of the constitution by Massachusetts was a source of profound satisfaction to Boston, and was celebrated with great rejoicing. After the ratifica tion the members of the convention dined together, toasts were drunk, and the asperities of debate were for- Federalist Boston. 173 gotten for the moment in a general sense of pleasure and relief. The next day a procession paraded the streets. First came the representatives of agriculture, then the trades, then the ship "Federal Constitution," drawn by thirteen horses, with a crew of thirteen men ; then captains and seamen of merchant-vessels, and finally more trades and the militia companies. The procession visited the houses of the Boston delegates, and fired salutes in front of the State House, while the proceedings concluded with another great public dinner. In the evening an old long-boat, named " The Old Con federation," was borne by another procession to the Common, and there burned amid the shouts of the people. With intense interest Boston watched the ratifica tion of the constitution by one State after another ; and we can see, in the newspapers, the rapid development of the new party of reconstruction, the friends of the constitution, now known as Federalists, and the corres ponding increase of bitterness toward all who attempted to thwart a measure believed, in Boston at least, to involve, the future existence of the nation. The party which thus took shape in the debates of the consti tutional convention, and which was solidified and strengthened by victory, bent all its energies to select ing senators and representatives who were well known to be strong friends of the new scheme. Flushed with their first triumph, the Federalists were generally suc cessful, and both senators were tried friends of the con stitution. But their most signal victory was in the Boston District, where they elected Fisher Ames the young and eloquent champion of the constitution over 174 Boston. Samuel Adams, the veteran of the Eevolution, and the idol of the town, but now suspected of coolness toward the great instrument which was destined to be the corner-stone of a nation. The defeat of Adams by Ames marked Boston as the great centre of New England Federalism. The pleasure excited in Boston by the successful es tablishment of the new government found an opportu nity for expression when Washington, venerated and beloved, the mainstay of the Union, as he had been of the Eevolution, made his visit to Massachusetts in the autumn of 1789. The President, accompanied by the Vice-President, John Adams, was received by the authorities on the outskirts of the town, and having been presented with an address, rode through the streets on a fine white horse, escorted by a long proces sion, civil and military, and greeted on all sides by the applause of a dense crowd. On arriving at the State House he was conducted to a platform thrown out on the west side of the building, and arranged, as we are informed, " to exhibit in a strong light the man of the PEOPLE." As Washington stood forth in all his simple majesty, cheers rang out, and an ode was sung in his honour by singers placed in a triumphal arch close by. After this the procession broke up, and then for several days there was a round of dinners and state visits. Washington lived during his stay in Boston at the corner of Tremont and Court Streets, where a smaU tablet still -commemorates his sojourn. The most amus ing incident of this visit, and the one most charac teristic both of the men and the times, was the little Federalist Boston. i 75 conflict between him and John Hancock on a point of etiquette, which had a good deal more real importance than such points generally possess. Hancock, as the chief officer of what he esteemed a sovereign State, un dertook to regard Washington as a sort of foreign poten tate, who was bound to pay the flrst visit to the ruler of the Commonwealth in which he found himself ; while Washington took the view that he was the superior officer of the Governor of Massachusetts, and that, as the head of the Union, Hancock was bound to visit him first. Washington's sense of dignity, and of what was due to his position, had often been exemplified, and the governor's vanity and State sovereignty were no match for it. Hancock prudently made the gout an excuse for giving way ; and having as fine a sense as the first Pitt of the theatrical properties of his malady, he appeared at Washington's door, swathed in flannel, and was borne on men's shoulders to the President's apartments. After this all went well ; and Washington's visit not only drew out the really vigorous personal loyalty of the people, but stUl further kindled the enthusiasm of Boston and of New England for the Union, and consequently strengthened the hands of the Federalists. The assumption of the State debts by the new Fed eral government did much to relieve the financial bur dens of Massachusetts ; and this, combined with the sense of stabUity in public affairs, roused the spirit of enterprise everywhere, so that Boston became the centre of many gi-eat schemes for public improvements, most of which came tb nothing, although they served, never theless, to encourage the business of the town. The population had again reached the number which it had 176 Boston. before the Eevolution, and the new era to which the war had been a prelude was fairly begun; As if to mark the change which had set in, one of the most con spicuous characters of the old period passed away at this time, by the death of John Hancock. There have been but few men in history who have achieved so much fame, and whose names are so familiar, who at the same time really did so little, and left so slight a trace of personal influence upon the times in which they lived, as John Hancock. He was valuable chiefly from his picturesqueness. Everything about Mm was pictur esque, from his bold, handsome signature, which gave him an assured immortality on the Declaration of Inde pendence, to his fine house, which appears in the pic tures of the day as the " Seat of His ExceUency, John Hancock." His position, wealth, and name made him valuable to the real movers of the Revolution, when men of his stamp were almost without exception on the side of the Crown ; and it was this which made such a man as Samuel Adams cling to and advance him, and which gave him a factitious importance. Hancock was far from greatness ; indeed it is to be feared that he was not much removed from being "the empty barrel," which is the epithet, tradition says, that the outspoken John Adams applied to him. Yet he had a real value after all. He was the Alcibiades, in a certain way, of the rebellious little Puritan town; and his display and gorgeousness no doubt gratified the sober, hard-headed community which put him at its head and kept him there. He stands out with a fine show of lace and vel vet and dramatic gout, — a real aristocrat, shining and resplendent against the cold gray background of every- Federalist Boston. ly/ day life in the Boston of the days after the Revolution, when the gay official society of the Province had been swept away. At the side of his house he built a dining hall, where he could assemble fifty or sixty guests ; and when his company was gathered he would be borne or wheeled in,, and with easy grace would delight every one by his talk and finished manners. In society his pettiness, peevishness, and narrowness would vanish, and his true value as a brilliant and picturesque figure would come out. r^ — Hancock's death was but one of the incidents which, as the old century hastened to its close, marked the change which had fairly come. The old simplicity, as well as the old stateliness and pomp, were alike slipping away. Those were the days when the gentrj'^ lived in large houses, enclosed by handsome gardens, and amused themselves with card-parties, dancing-parties, and wed dings, and when there were no theatres, and nothing in the way of relaxation except these little social festivities. But the enemy was at the gates, — a great, hurrying, successful, driving democracy. Brick blocks threatened the gardens ; the theatre came, despite the august man date of Governor Hancock; the elaborate and stately dress of the eighteenth century began to be pushed aside, first for grotesque and then for plainer fashions ; the little interests of provincial days began to wane ; Unitarianism sapped the foundations of the stout old church of Winthrop and Cotton ; and the eager zest for intellectual excitement poured itself into business and politics (the only channels then open), giving to the latter an intensity hardly to be appreciated in days when mental resources are as numerous as they then 12 178 Boston. were few. Boston was feeling the effects of the change which had been wrought by the War for Indepen dence, the first act of the mighty revolutionary drama just then reopening in Paris. To this change and progress in society and in habits of life the French Revolution gave of course a powerful impetus. The tidings from Paris were received in this country at first with a universal burst of exultation, which found as strong expression in Boston as any where. The success of Dumouriez was the occasion of a great demonstration. A Uberty pole was raised, an ox roasted, and bread and wine distributed in State Street; while Samuel Adams, who had succeeded his old companion as governor, presided, with the French consul, at a great civic banquet in Faneuil Hall. The foUies of the Parisian mob were rapidly adopted ; " Lib erty and Equality" was stamped on chUdren's cakes, and the sober merchants and mechanics of Boston began to address each other as " citi:ren " Brown, and " citizen " Smith. The ridiculous side of all this business would soon have made itself felt among a people whose sense of humour was one of their strongest characteristics ; but when the farce became tragedy, and freedom was bap tized in torrents of blood, and the gentle, timid, stupid king, known to Americans only as a kind friend, was brought to the block, the enthusiasm rapidly subsided. Every one knows how the affairs of France were dragged into our national politics for party purposes, with Demo cratic societies and Jacobin clubs in their train, and the bitterness which came from them ; but all this gained little foothold in Boston, where the insults of Genet, the first minister of revolutionary France, roused general in- Federalist Boston. 179 dignation, and the attitude of Washington toward the insolent Frenchman found hearty support. But fidelity to Washington and to the Federalist party was about to encounter a much severer strain. The war with England was so recent that it was hazardous to make any treaty with that country ; and to carry through such a treaty as actually was made, was a task for which Washington alone was capable. The Jay treaty, which even Hamilton is said to have called, in the first moment of irritation, " an old woman's treaty," on the one side, and which Charles Fox, with all his liberalism, thought unfavourable to England on the other, was received in America with a cry of rage so general that it seemed universal. In Boston a popular meeting was held, and Democratic leaders indulged in vehement and acceptable denunciation. Riots broke out of a rather ugly character, which Governor Adams, blinded by preju dice, refused to repress ; and the excellent Mr. Jay was hanged and burned in effigy, to the perfect satisfaction of the mob. The Federalists were stunned. Many of them openly condemned the treaty, while only the very coolest heads among them believed in sustaining the Administration. Gradually, however, the leaders rallied. The Boston Chamber of Commerce passed resolutions in support of the President reaction began ; the stern, calm replies of Washington checked the tide of angry passion, and men at last began to see, especiaUy in a business community, that the treaty, even if not the best possible, was necessary and valuable, and that the fortunes of the young nation ought not to be entangled with those of the mad French Republic. Boston was once more Fed eralist, and the stormy gust of anger had blown over. i8o Boston. When Samuel Adams retired from public life, the growth of the Federalist party was shown by the choice of Increase Sumner as his successor. Governor Sumner was an ardent supporter of John Adams, — then just beginning his eventful administration ; and the troubles with France which ensued, awakened deep indignation in Boston. Sumner's course drew out the most violent attacks, but he was re-elected nevertheless, by an over whelming majority. The fortunes of the Federalists were at their highest point ; and Moses GiU, the Ueu- tenant-governor — whom the death of Sumner left at the head of the government — was succeeded by Caleb Strong, an ex-senator, and one of the staunchest of Fede ralists. Yet even in the midst of their success, the hour of their downfall was at hand. The administration of John Adams was torn with fierce internal dissensions, and the President and the leaders in New England were hopelessly estranged. But although many of the chiefs in Boston drew off from the President, the clans stood by him, and gave him the vote of Massachusetts. It proved a useless loyalty. The FederaUsts fell from power, and the new century opened with the accession of Jefferson, an event which both leaders and followers in Boston had brought themselves to believe would be little else than the coming of a Marat or a Robespierre. It is hardly necessary to say that nothing of this sort happened; but that, on the contrary, a period of pros perity, for which the short-lived peace of Amiens opened the way, began, as unequalled as it was unexpected. This prosperity took the form of maritime commerce, and poured its riches into the lap of Boston, conspicu ously among all the seaports. At the same time, of Federalist Boston. i8i course, all the country throve, although the great ad vance was most apparent among the merchants of Bos ton and New York, and the seafaring population of New England. When men are making money and prospering, it is not easy to awaken among them great political enthusiasm, nor is it easy to convince them that the administration under which they have suc ceeded is a bad one. But this was not the case with the Federalist leaders. Nothing could check their deadly hatred of Jefferson, which increased as they saw their own power decline and that of the Government wax strong. As the conviction forced itself upon their minds that the sceptre of government had passed finally to the South, before whom a divided North was help less, they struggled vainly against fate ; and the bitter ness of ¦ party, so marked in the first decade of the century, found its origin in the years of Jefferson's first term, when peace and prosperity reigned throughout the country. Like the Whig party in England, after the fall of the Coalition, when they were called to face Pitt and his vast majorities, the thin ranks of the Fed eralists were still further weakened by the internal dis sensions growing out of the sorry strifes of the Adams administration. These quarrels had been allayed by defeat; but they were only partially healed, and they were soon to bear bitter fruit. Of all this, Boston was of course the centre ; and when the annexation of Louisiana roused the Federalists to desperation, it was in Boston that a meeting was to be held, at which Hamilton should be present, and where the schemes of secession which the New England leaders had been seriously discussing under their breath should find expression, and obtain a decision 1 82 Boston. on their merits. The good sense of some of the leaders contributed with other causes to prevent the occurrence of this meeting ; but had there been no other obstacle, the death of Hamilton would have sufficed to cause postponement, if nothing else. The loss of that great man was peculiarly felt in Boston, where almost every man of note was one of his devoted followers, and where Federalism had struck its roots deeper and clung with a greater tenacity than anywhere else. In Boston, Ham ilton's death was deeply mourned. There the money, a large sum for those days, was subscribed to buy his lands and relieve the necessities of his family; and there the first statue of later times was raised to the great secretary, commemorating alike his genius and the enduring and faithful Federalism of the old town in the years when the power of the Democratic party seemed universal. In this dark hour the Federalists were, indeed, nearly extinct ; and when Massachusetts, in 1804, gave her elec toral vote to Jefferson, it seemed as if the end could not be far distant. In fact, the Federalist party would soon have perished utterly had it not been for the amazing blunders of Jefferson's second term, which gave them a new lease of life and a vigorous and partially successful existence. This revival, however, had not begun when an incident occurred, familiar to all who know the history of Boston, which forcibly illustrates the violent party divisions of the town. This was the famous shooting of young Austin in the street by Thomas Selfridge, the former a Democrat, the latter a Federalist. It is not necessary to go into the details of the story of the death of Austin and the consequent trial of Selfridge. Federalist Boston. 183 The affair was made a party question ; the newspapers were full of flings at Federalist murders and their im punity ; and the talk, criticism, and invective connected with it give a vivid picture of the heated politics of Boston at that time. But the fervour of partisan feel ing was soon to glow with a still fiercer heat, owing to the course of the world's history, in which the United States, the only neutral nation, and still shackled by colonial feelings, was the football of the two great con tending forces. Napoleon Bonaparte and the English Government. Into the stream of these mighty events, which were world-wide in their scope, the fortunes of Boston were strongly drawn. The renewal of hostilities by Napoleon had thrown the trade of all nations, and particularly that of Eng land, the dominant power of the commercial world, into confusion. From this disorder the United States, as the only neutral with a strong merchant-marine, reaped a rich harvest, the fruits of which fell of course largely to New England, and therefore to Boston. It was the golden era of the American merchant-service, in which much of the best abiUty and the most daring enterprise were concentrated. Always alert and now flushed with success, the New England sea-captains and the mer chants of Boston took quick advantage of the troubles of Europe to engross rapidly the carrying-trade of the world, and to heap up handsome fortunes from its enor mous profits. We may see all this energy, courage, and enterprise depicted in the now almost forgotten voyages of Cleaveland and Delano, and learn how strong and true the genius for the sea was in the New England race. But we can also see there the dark side of the o 184 Boston. picture ; not merely the normal dangers and hardships, but the insult and pillage inflicted by French and Eng lish, and the helpless, manly wrath and indignation of the American seamen. Our success and prosperity after the outbreak of war in Europe were in truth too obvious, and soon aroused the unsleeping jealousy of England. Seizures began to be made by British cruisers ; then came unwarrantable condemnations in the British ad miralty courts ; and then oppressive Orders in Council. The first sensation was one of angry pride and keen disappointment at interference with our apparently boundless sources of profit. Sharp remonstrances and resolutions went out from Boston to spur the lagging Executive. The Federalist leaders, who regarded Eng land as the bulwark of civilization against the all-de stroying French Revolution personified in Napoleon, were overborne; and, whUe reprobating these violent measures in secret, seemed about to lose their last hold upon the people, and were forced to see their governor, Caleb Strong, replaced by James SulUvan, a leading Democrat. They were properly helpless before the righteous indignation which blazed up more fiercely than ever when the English, not content with despoiUng our merchant-vessels, fired upon the national fiag flying from a national ship. If Mr. Jefferson had at that su preme moment declared war, and appealed to the coun try, he would have had the cordial support of the mass of the people not only in New England but in Boston itself, the very citadel of Federalism. But it was not to be. The President faltered as the Federalists rallied and renewed their attack, fell back on Ms preposterous theories of commercial warfare, well suited to his ti- Federalist Boston 185 midity and love of shuffling, and forced the celebrated embargo through both Houses of Congress. The support of New England in the trying times which were at hand was lost to the Administration, and the political game in that important section of the country was once more in the hands of those Federalist chiefs whose headquarters were at Boston. The FederaUsm of Boston had in fact remained steady in every trial, although there was a moment when Jefferson might have sapped its strength. It had been heard in Washington for years through the eloquent lips of Josiah Quincy, whose voice now rose clearer and stronger than ever, trumpet-tongued against the embargo policy. The defection of John Quincy Adams on this same measure gave the town another strong and outspoken representative in the Senate in the person of James Lloyd, a leading merchant; and thus equipped in Washington, Boston faced the impending troubles. So bitter however was the feeling against England, so strong the sense of wounded national pride, that even the embargo was received in Boston at first with silent sub mission ; but its operation told so severely upon both town and State that hostility to the Administration rapidly deepened and strengthened. We can now hardly realize the effect of this measure upon Boston ; but one fact lets in a flood of light. The tonnage of the United States in 1807 was, in round numbers, eight hundred and fifty thousand tons, and of this three hundred and ten thousand tons belonged to Massachusetts alone. The total cessation of commerce fell therefore upon Boston with blighting effect. Her merchant-ships rot ted at the wharves, or were hauled up and dismantled. 1 86 Boston. The busy ship-yards were still and silent, and all who gained their living by them were thrown out of work. The fisheries were abandoned, and agriculture was distressed. If in Philadelphia seamen marched in large bodies to the City Hall for relief, we can imagine what the condition of the seafaring population must have been in Boston. Ruin threatened the merchants, and poverty stared the labouring classes in the face. Gradually all this began to tell upon the temper of the people ; riots and insurrections were feared by men of all parties ; and the Federalists now found willing listeners when they pointed out to a people naturally brave and ready to fight, that the injuries infiicted by England were trifling in comparison with the total de struction of trade caused by their own Government; that the embargo had not as usual a limitation, but might become permanent; and that however it might be disguised, the only people really benefited by the embargo were the French. Slowly political power re turned to the party constantly in opposition to Jeffer son and all his works. Resistance began to crop out on all sides. Pickering attacked Governor Sullivan in a violent pamphlet; Samuel Dexter argued in court against the constitutionality of the embargo, and juries refused to convict for infractions of its provisions. The Federalists carried the legislature, and passed resolu tions denouncing the embargo, and questioning its con stitutionality ; while the town of Boston instructed its representatives, in town meeting, to resist the hated law, in terms which recalled the days of Samuel Adams and the Port Bill, and which induced John Randolph to re mind Jefferson of the fate of Lord North in a former Federalist Boston. 187 difficulty with the Puritan town. Then it was that John Quincy Adams thought treason and secession were afoot in Boston, and warned the Administration of its perU. He was mistaken as to. the extent of the danger, for there was no treason, and nothing worse than omi nous whisperings of secession. The ripeness of the times and of the public, in Boston, for desperate meas ures was sufficient to excite such suspicions ; but the Federalists did not aim at violence. In the state of society then existing, in the opportunity offered, and in the condition of the times, it is a matter of, wonder that passions were so controlled ; for it is not easy to appre ciate now the mental concentration in that day and gen eration. There was practically no art, no literature, no science of native origin ; the only great branch of business was laid low by the embargo, and there were none of the thousand and one interests which now divide and absorb our energy and activity. Absolutely, the only source of inteUectual excitement was politics ; and to this were confined the mental forces of a small, vigorous, cultivated, and aristocratic society, which flung itself into public affairs with its whole heart and soul. They were a con vivial set, these FederaUst leaders in Boston, and were wont to dine together at three o'clock ; and at five, when the ladies left the room, Madeira and politics flowed with out stint until midnight and after. It is small wonder that their . politics were heated ; that ex-senators and governors bandied harsh words in the offices of State Street, or demanded explanations in the newspapers ; and that the traditional feuds and bitterness of 1808, although softened and apparently forgotten, have survived in Bos ton among those who inherit them even to the present day. 1 88 Boston. With matters in this state, the passage of the en forcing act aroused so much anger, the attitude of New England became so menacing, that the Northern Demo crats quailed ; and led by such " pseudo Republicans " as Joseph Story who were not ready to sacrifice their homes to Mr. Jefferson's theories. Congress repealed the embargo. There was a great sigh of relief; and when the Erskine arrangement was made, the sails of the merchant-ships again whitened the harbour of Boston. The more reasonable policy of Mr. Madison was only temporary, however, in its effects, and was soon replaced by vacillation, and by labyrinthine complications into which it is unnecessary to enter. Still, the relaxation, slight as it was, sufficed to loosen the hold of the Federal ists, and Governor Gore was replaced by Elbridge Gerry, whose administration was in itself enough to strengthen and to give victory once more to its opponents. He denounced in a message the publications of the Federal press, which were, indeed, vituperative and coarse to a high degree, especially in Boston ; and he endeavoured to bring in the power of the govemment to punish the aggressors. He also supported a plan of arranging election districts for partisan purposes, which was so bad, and at that time so unheard of, that it gave a new word to the language. All this enabled the Federalists to defeat him by a close vote, in which they were aided by the gathering clouds of confiict, which finally broke, June 18, 1812, in Mr. Madison's declaration of war against England. The preceding years of mercantile restrictions had not only hardened and imbittered the Federalist leaders, but had estranged the affections and worn out the tem- Federalist Boston. 189 per of the people of Boston and of New England, ready enough to have supported a manly war-policy in 1807. Their trade had been crippled, and had crumbled away before restrictive measures ; the navy, which they chiefly manned, and in which they believed, had been neglected, and they were in no humour for a war which put the finishing stroke to their commercial prosperity and activity for the time being. They were perfectly ready to sympathize with the protest of the Federalist representatives against the war, which they accepted with sullen dislike. Some of the Federalist leaders, notably Samuel Dexter, conceiving that party differ ences should be buried in the presence of the enemy, seceded ; but the FederaUst majorities only grew with each election, wMle the beUef that the war was needless and unjust, and was part and parcel of a general policy designed to ruin New England, spread daily, and gained favour, carrying with it everywhere resistance to the Administration. Into the controversies thus engendered it is not fitting to enter here, although they involved the fortunes of the town ; for they were wide and far-reach ing, and chiefly concerned the Nation and the States. The general sentiment in Boston seems to have settled down into a determination to do nothing in active sup port of offensive war, but resolutely to defend them selves against any foreign aggression. This they were called upon to do before the war closed. In 1814, the British policy of coast descents was extended to New England ; scattered attacks were made, accompanied with burning and pillage, and the sails of English cruisers could daily be descried from Boston. The town was in a defenceless condition, the forts al- 190 Boston. most useless, and owing to the bitter quarrels with the Administration no help had been given, or was to be looked for, from the national Government. The people of Boston and of Massachusetts had, however, no mind to endure the fate of Washington, and took prompt measures to protect themselves. The old forts were put in order, and a new one. Fort Strong, was thrown up upon Noddle's Island, the work being rapidly per formed by large bodies of ready volunteers under the direction of Loammi Baldwin, the engineer. The mil itia were called out also, and stationed at the forts and at other points, ready to repel the expected attack, which fortunately never came. The exposed condition of the capital and of the other seaports however, and the neglect of the national Government, did much to precipitate the crisis in the relations of State aud Nation which had been long im- pending. In October, the legislature took steps toward concerted action among the New England States, with a view to their defending themselves, and to forcing upon the Administration the policy which they believed to be right. The result was the famous Hartford Convention, whose history belongs to the State and to New England, and not to Boston ; although the feeling which led to that meeting found its fullest expression, perhaps, in the capital, where the newspapers — notably the "Daily Advertiser," then just started — urged strong measures, and hinted at secession, and where the younger and more violent portion of the FederaUst party was ripe for almost any step. The old and trusted leaders, however, threw themselves into the gap, determined to commit no overt act, but to check and control the movement Federalist Boston. 191 at that time and leave the future to shape their subse quent course. Boston was represented at Hartford by George Cabot, who was chosen president of the con vention, and by William Prescott, Harrison Gray Otis, and Timothy Bigelow. The result was as Mr. Quincy prophesied a "great pamphlet;" and the committee sent to Washington reached the national capital at the same time as the news of the Ghent treaty, which made their errand seem more fooUsh than threatening. Peace was received in Boston with ringing of bells and with every form of rejoicing, public and private ; and by none was it more welcomed than by the Feder alists. The effect of the war on Boston was severe in the extreme. Not only was commerce the great source of industry and wealth wholly cut off, but the depend ence upon England now so difficult to realize not only for every manufactured article of luxury but for many of the necessaries of life, had, by the cessation of intercourse, brought a sense of privation and loss into every household. The war, and the policy of commercial restriction preceding it, had also upon Boston one deep and lasting effect, which was hardly perceived at the moment, but which changed her business character, and powerfuUy influenced her politics from that day to this. In the first years of the nineteenth century, Boston was a great commercial centre, and nothing else. Mr. Jefferson with his embargo and its kindred meas ures, followed as they were by the War of 1812, shook the whole financial and economical system of the town. Commerce was crippled, at times almost extinguished, and comparatively large masses of capital were set loose and left idle, whUe at the same time an immense 192 Boston. fund of enterprise and activity was unemployed. The result was to force all this capital and enterprise into other channels, where before they had begun to flow very slowly. Manufactures received a great impetus ; and the capital, which had been turned aside by the policy of the Administration, did not, when peace came, revert to its old pursuits. From being a strong free- trade town, Boston became as vigorously protectionist before the first quarter of a century closed. Mr. Jeffer son seems to have designed to reduce the commercial interest and weaken New England by his policy ; he certainly regarded with complacency the fact that it would have that tendency. The result, however, was that manufactures were stimulated. The progress of Boston was changed, not arrested; and New England industries were for years protected, as Jefferson's politi cal followers believed, at the expense of his beloved South. The conclusion of the war, and the revival of busi ness in all directions, closed the differences which had divided the country since the foundation of the govern ment, and turned men's minds from the political issues of the past. It was the dawn of the so-called era of good-feeling, the transition period, in which old parties disappeared and new ones were developed. The Fed eralists of Massachusetts retained their power for many years, dexterously avoiding the rocks of religious con troversy on which their party brethren of Connecticut were wrecked. They held the government by reason of past services solely, for the great political questions which had brought them forth and given them strength no longer existed. Gradually, however, they faded Federalist Boston. 193 away ; the old leaders in Boston and elsewhere retired from public life, or were removed by death ; and the century had hardly completed its second decade when the great party of Washington, really lifeless for some years, vanished even in name from our history, finaUy and irrevocably. Almost coincident with the disappearance of the FederaUst party was the change of municipal govern ment in Boston from the town form to that of a city. The change had been agitated at various times from a very early period down to 1821, and in the next year the old town government came to an end. It had been the government of Winthrop and Cotton, of Adams and Franklin ; it had defied George III. and Lord North, and its name had rung through two continents in the days when it faced the EngUsh Parliament alone and unterrified ; it was the most famous municipal organ ization in America, and it passed away into history honoured and regretted. 13 194 Boston. CHAPTER XI. the city of boston. When Boston passed from a system of town govern ment to that of a city, it passed from one form of local government to another equaUy well know to English- speaking people, although not so ancient. The direct government by the people themselves, meeting together to decide upon their own affairs, was replaced by a rep resentative system on the model of English cities, with which the people of Boston in knowledge if not in prac tice had always been familiar. Instead of a meeting of the people, the City had a Board of Aldermen and a Common Council to legislate for them ; and instead of the Selectmen, there was a Mayor to execute the orders of the representative body and to administer the gov ernment. The change although long resisted, and at the last carried only by a slender majority, had become absolutely necessary owing to the growth of the popu lation. Matters of general interest were sure to receive a fairer and better consideration at the hands of a rep resentative body than they could possibly obtain from a town-meeting where only a small fragment of the forty thousand inhabitants could be present, and where that small fragment had neither representative author ity nor responsibility. Thus it came about that much as the change was regretted and opposed, it was accepted The City of Boston. 195 as inevitable, and the people soon adapted themselves to it. The first mayor under the new charter was John Phillips, chosen to that office because there had been dissensions among the Federalists (theu in their last days, but still powerful in Boston) as to the candidate whom they should put up. The result of the wrangle was a compromise by general assent upon Mr. Phillips ; and the election of the mayor was neither advocated nor opposed very strongly by anybody. Mr. Phillips held office only for a year, and then was succeeded by Josiah Quincy, who left a deeper imprint upon the Gov ernment of Boston than any man who has been con nected with it since the city charter went into effect. Mr. Quincy had distinguished himself in earlier days in Washington as a member of Congress, where he had been the ablest aud most eloquent leader of the irre concilable Federalists. He was a man of marked qual ities and weU-defined ideas, very determined and, Uke most strong men, inclined to be arbitrary. He had, what few mayors have, a policy of a broad and far- reaching kind ; and he had in addition, what is pos sessed by still fewer, the energy, the determination, and the power to carry that policy into effect. The first year of the city system under Mr. PhilUps's somewhat timid leadership did not meet the expectations of the people as to the benefits of their new form of govern ment, but they had no such complaint to make in the case of Mr. Quincy. During his five years of rule, the sanitary condition of the city was made better, the work of cleaning the streets was systematized, the police force was improved, a new market was built which had the 196 Boston. effect of opening up the lower part of Boston, and the fire department was re-organized and made as efficient as the methods of that day permitted. Mr. Quincy also carried through measures for the better care of the poor, and advanced very much the standard of education in the schools. He performed during his years of office a really great work; but like most men who carry through important reforms and novel measures, he gradually raised up so many enemies that he was de feated for his sixth term. Nevertheless, it is to him that Boston really owes her organization as a city ; for by him the enactments of the charter were converted into living and moving realities. It was he who marked out the lines on which the city in the main has pro ceeded since ; and to him Boston owes a debt which she ought never to forget. Quincy's successor was Harrison Gray Otis, who, like Quincy, had been for many years distinguished in pub lic life and a leader of the Federalist party. His de scent from one of the famUies most distinguished in the previous century for leading the resistance to Eng land, his own eminence in public life, his wealth, his brilliancy as an orator, combined with a remarkable grace of manner, made him for many years the most conspicuous figure in Boston society. It so happened that he was iU on the day of his inauguration. He therefore sent for the aldermen and the common council to come to his house, where he read to them his inaugu ral address, aud had the City Government for the ensuing year duly although privately organized, — an evidence of social power which would be no longer possible. The practice of taking for mayor the citizen most dis- The City of Boston 197 tinguished socially and politically, as illustrated iu the election of Quincy and Otis, was of short duration. City politics soon took on another and more democratic form. National parties were extended to municipal af fairs, an Ulogical but perhaps inevitable arrangement, which has been productive of much evil, and which has led to independent combinations, known generally as " citizens' tickets," for the purpose of defeating the can didates of the regular party "machines." It is not necessary to follow one by one the mayors who have succeeded one another in Boston from the days of Quincy and Otis to the present time. They have been with rare exceptions men of character and stand ing, who were devoted to the interests of the city, and who sought to do all that was best with the great re sponsibility committed to their charge. The problems with which they have had to deal have been serious, and the measures which they have had to carry into execution have been those common to all modern cities of rapid growth. The history of their administrations has been the history of material improvements, of the extension of the city in territory, and of its advance in population on the one side, and of the effort on the part of the government on the other to meet the demands which this extension and growth created. The question of a proper supply of water was brought up under the administration of Mayor Lyman in 1833, and the work was completed and the water from the new sources in troduced during the term of the younger Quincy twelve years later. The filling up of the flats on either side of the Neck began under the younger Quincy in 1847 and has been continued to the present time, until now 1 98 Boston. a large part of the handsomest quarters of the city has been built on land thus rescued from the daily inva sion of the tides. Together with these municipal un dertakings for the development of the city there have been also improvements in lighting, in methods of com munication, and in the organization of the police depart ment, which have all been made necessary by the demands of the times and the growth of population. During these years of growth and progress Boston has not escaped some of the evils which have been in separable from the government of large municipalities in the United States. In Boston, as in other great American cities, there has been in the last half-century a great addition to the population from immigration. This immigration was of course composed of persons who were unfamiliar with American habits and ways of thought. Many of them were illiterate, many more were poor. The task of assimilating these people and of converting them into American citizens has been necessarily attended with dangers aud difficulties when they have been gathered closely in large cities. The crowding together of the extremes of wealth and pov erty, the indifference of the former and the rise of pro fessional politicians to control the latter, the necessary expenditures of a great city with its horde of employees, the natural tendency of the man who pays no taxes to regard with indifference an extravagance which falls only on those who are tax-payers, — all these conditions offer temptations and produce evils which in many American cities have reached an alarming height. They have led to corruption in politics and in administration, at the polls and in the offices of the City Hall. They have The City of Boston. 199 brought about enormous debts, heavy taxation, and ineffi cient administration. They are largely due to the politi cal feebleness of the people who have most at stake, but who are either timid, lazy, or ineffective. It is idle to sit down and croak over the ignorant and vicious vote of the great cities of the United States. There it is, and it must be dealt with. If the ignorant are not in structed and the well-meaning aroused and organized by the best and strongest men to defeat the vicious, they surely will be led by the worst men, or by any who will take the trouble to manage and deceive them. Boston has not escaped these evils ; yet on the whole she may consider herself fortunate in the manner in which she has dealt and is dealing with these grave problems of municipal government. The most enthusiastic Bosto- iiian would not for a moment think of saying that all has been perfect or anything like perfection in the gov ernment of his city. At the same time, it is true that the civic pride and intense local feeUng of the Puritan settlers have survived thus far in sufficient strength to protect the government of the city they founded from many of the worst evils which have befallen her neigh bors. There have been times when it is to be feared that there has been corruption in Boston's municipal representation, fostered by great corporate interests which had something to get from the city, either in contracts or franchises. There is no doubt that in the expenditure of the public money there has been a great deal of culpable extravagance and unpardonable waste, and that more money has been spent again and again than the result justified. But there has never been any plundering of the city treasury ; and the municipal 200 Boston. history of Boston has not been disgraced yet by such robberies as were familiar to New York under the gov ernment of Tweed. Of late, after a period of steady decline in character and efficiency, the tendency despite many fiuctuations has seemed to be upward rather than downward, and in the direction of improvement in the system and methods of administration rather than the reverse. The wise movement which has gained support ers in every American state and city, and which aims to concentrate responsibility and make the city officers more directly answerable to the people, has grown in force, and has found expression in practical amendments to the city charter. But no provision of law, however wise, can of itself secure good government. If the dem ocratic system is to succeed, it must be through the peo ple themselves ; and in large cities this success can be secured only by the hardest and most diligent poUtical work on the part of the most inteUigent citizens and of those most interested in the welfare of the city. Even then it is certain that under the difficulties of modern conditions we shall fall far short of perfection ; but without this effort on the part of all honest citizens, it is sure beyond a peradventure that the course will be downward, until a point is reached that jvill seriously imperil the welfare of any city. The problems of governing a great city are many and various. Boston had forty thousand inhabitants when she gave up her town government. She has to-day within her city limits nearly half a milUon of people, while in her suburbs, which really form part of the daUy Ufe of the municipaUty, are gathered half a million moire. When the town became a city it had a debt The City of Boston. 201 of $100,000, and the current expenses for 1822 were $249,000. December 31, 1890 the net city debt was thirty-one millions, the valuation nearly eight hun dred millions, and the annual expenditure for the last fiscal year nearly eighteen millions. With the difficul ties arising from this growth of population and from the expenditures indicated by these figures, as well as from the influx of a large foreign immigration, Boston has on the whole coped successfully. Her municipal government, as has been said, has been very far from ideaUy perfect; but on the whole it has been fairly successful, and there seems to be a popular disposition to reaUze the importance of changes which new condi tions necessitate. In the sixty-eight years which have elapsed since the city charter first went into effect, that part of the his tory of Boston which is most interesting is not disclosed by a catalogue of her improvements in street paving and drainage, in the introduction of gas, water, horse raUroads and electric lighting, nor by the dry annals and ordinances of succeeding city governments. That which is of real value in the events of that period is to be found in the history of the changes which have been wrought in population and in public opinion, and in tracing the development of thought and of hereditary tendencies and their modifications through the intro duction of new elements and conditions. There was no part of the United States, during the colonial time, in which there was so little mixture of races as in New England. Dr. Palfrey says, in his His tory of New England, that for a hundred and fifty years there was practically no admixture of blood with the 202 Boston. English stock which first settled the country ; and that there was probably no part of the dominion of Great Britain where the English race could be found in greater purity than in the Puritan colonies. New England was settled by a large emigration of Puritan Englishmen. After the first rush had ended, her territory was gradu ally occupied by the descendants of the early settlers, and by men of the same sort who continued to come from year to year, although in smaUer numbers than at first, from the mother-country. Toward the end of the seventeenth century there was a small Huguenot emigration to New England, as to most of the EngUsh colonies in America ; and of all the many strains of blood in the new world none has proved better than that of these French refugees. They assimilated almost immedi ately with the English inhabitants, and by their thrift and industry as well as by their strength of character and their ability, held an important place in the com munity which their descendants have always retained. They were too few, however, in number to have any very marked effect on the population of which they became a part. To New Hampshire there came also a small emigration from the north of Ireland, — men aud women of Scotch blood or descended from Cromwell's soldiers, stanch Protestants who had made themselves fa mous by the great defence of Londonderry, and known in the United States as the Scotch-Irish. Wherever these people went they played an important part, and their names may be found in the history of New Hampshire and of Massachusetts, occupying conspicuous places both iu peace and war. But this emigration, like that of the Huguenots, was too small to have any very defi- The City of Boston. 203 nite influence upon the general character of the popu lation, and was scarcely perceptible outside of New Hampshire. To a degree, of course, Boston differed from the rest of New, England in the fact that it was a large town given up to trade and commerce, and like all busy seaports had drawn to itself a certain floating population from which were recruited the mobs of the Revolution, who so often troubled the patriot leaders by their unseason able outbreaks. But here again it may be said, as in the case of the Huguenots and the Scotch-Irish, that this floating population was too small to have any marked influence upon the great body of the population of the town. It was not until Boston had become a city, and had entered upon the third century of its existence, that the great change in its population began. This change has gone on at an accelerated pace to the present day, until now more than half the population is of either foreign birth or parentage. This immigration does not represent the wide variety so noticeable in the case of New York. There have come to Boston, of course, men of different race stocks. There are Scotch, English, Germans, Scandinavians, Italians, and Portuguese among her foreign-born population, as there would be in al most any large city ; but all these elements are numeri cally small. The great bulk of the immigration which has come to Boston and remained there, has been from Ireland ; and it is the Irish who compose the vast mass of those people of foreign birth and parentage who now outnumber the original possessors of the city. The process of assimilation which has gone on all over the United States, by which men of so many 204 Boston. different races have been turned into good American citizens, and by which also an American type has been developed, has of course been at work in New England and in Boston as well as elsewhere. The people of New England, however, have taken less kindly to the foreign infusion, and assimilated it less readily, than has been the case generally in other parts of the United States. This was due partly to the fact that the New Englanders had lived for so many years with scarcely any foreign admixture, and partly to the deeply imprinted and avowed belief of the early Puri tans that they were a chosen people, set apart from the rest of manl^nd for a particular work in the world. Travellers in the last century noted the fact that the people of New England were unpopular in the other colonies because they prided themselves so much on their purity of race, and also, to a certain extent, be cause they held themselves aloof This unpopularity and this suspicion of the New Englanders cropped out strongly when Congress was struggling toward the Dec laration of Independence, while at the beginning of this century Jefferson commented on it with no little bitter ness, and said that the people of New England resem bled the Jews in the way in which they set themselves apart from the rest of the world. This race-pride or race- prejudice, or whatever it may be called, has of course been modified, and has declined under the influence of mod ern conditions ; but it has never been wholly lost, and probably never will be. If it were ever harmful either to the people of New England or to their enterprises, it has long since ceased to be so, whUe it has had other effects which have been of very real value. It is to The City of Boston. 205 this pride of race, and to the lingering faith in the de clared belief of the early Puritans that they were a chosen people, that the public spirit is due which has kept the town, city, and state governments of New Eng land through so many years, so comparatively free from any reproach; and which has made them, generally speaking, such conspicuous examples of successful pop ular government. It is to their intense belief in them selves, their race, and their traditions, that the success of the New Englanders, both in their native country and in the other states of the Union, has been largely due. It is to this feeling that Boston owes the fact, that de spite many short-comings she has managed thus far to keep clear of some of the worst evUs which have been the misfortune of other great cities of the United States. We are always slow to realize the endurance of deflned traditions and habits of thought. Where these tradi tions and habits come from a people of such marked qualities and rigid beliefs as were possessed by the men who first settled New England, their influence and en durance are even greater than usual Such has been the case in a marked way with the feeling of race-pride, to which reference has just been made. More interest ing, however, than pride of race has been the develop ment of the early Puritan qualities of thought under modern conditions. In the earlier chapters of this vol ume I have pointed out the conflict which all uncon sciously the Puritans planted in Boston, when they established a narrow theocracy as the government of a united Church and State, and then placed on one side of it political liberty, and on the other the free school. Yet the very incongruity of this combination typified 2o6 Boston. the Puritan himself He was primarily a reformer, a man who thought for himself,, and who accepted noth ing as necessarily right simply because it was estab lished. He was a man in fact who revolted against the established order of things in the state if it seemed to him wrong, and who refused to think in religion as the Church ordered him to think. Set free from all bonds in a new country, he followed the dictates of that im perious will which is the inseparable companion of the strong characters, by setting up his iron theocracy with one hand, while with the other he followed the opposite impulse of his nature, and struck off the fetters from the human mind. He did not himself see the incon gruity of this arrangement ; but events soon developed it, and in the inevitable conflict which followed, the theocracy went down. Nevertheless, although the power of the churches under the law broke down, the clergy continued for another cen tury to exercise an enormous influence both socially and politically. They were the learned class, and they were besides a vigorous body of men. Naturally conserva tive, they nevertheless, with hardly an exception, es poused the patriot side at the period of the Revolution, because England among her many blunders had given them reason to believe that she contemplated the estab lishment of Episcopacy in Massachusetts. This was one principal cause of the fact that outside of Boston there were hardly any Tories. The other colonies, with the exception of Virginia, were divided, as is the case in all civil wars ; but in those of New England aU men prac ticaUy were on the side of revolution, and this may be largely attributed to the influence of the clergy. After The City of Boston. 207 the adoption of the constitution, the ministers of New England went back to their normal position of conser vatism and the support of energetic government. Al most to a man they were in favour of the constitution, and stanch Federalists. It was owing in large measure to their teacMngs that the people of Massachusetts re garded the mild Jefferson as Uttle better than an Amer ican Robespierre, and clung so tenaciously to Federalism long after the rest of the country had abandoned it. But even then the end was at hand. The inteUectual movement which began at the close of the eighteenth century could neither be stopped nor excluded, aud there was a general revolt against the influence and the doctrines of the churches founded by Winthrop and his followers. The Puritans belonged to that class of Englishmen who began by reasoning themselves flrst out of the Roman Catholic Church, and next out of the Church of England. At the end of the seventeenth century their effort to repress dissent in Massachusetts by law, which they carried as far as the imposition of the death pen alty, broke down completely. Then came a period of quiet ; and then at the end of the next century the sec ond movement set in, and a large portion of the descend ants of the Puritans reasoned themselves away from their own doctrines. In Connecticut the division led to a political revolution. In Massachusetts the churches lost the taxes imposed for their benefit by the state, and separated into the Unitarian and Trinitarian Congrega tionalists. The new movement found its headquarters in Boston, and its most brUliant representative in Wil liam EUery Channing. The old faith held out better in 2o8 Boston. the country, but in the city fashion declared for the Unitarians, who for many years were the ruling sect in Boston. The movement, of course, did not stop at Uni tarianism. It produced not only Channing but Theo dore Parker, and gave birth to Transcendentalism and other speculative doctrines in which a period of reU gious restlessness is sure to be prolific. The outward forms and customs, as is apt to be the case, died harder than the vital principles. Long after the stern faith of the forefathers had drifted far away, the habits of much church-going, of gloomy observance of Sunday, and of keen suspicion of all that was amusing stUl endured. These in their turn have faded, although the Puritan Sabbath, despite much modification, still holds sway in the United States as in England. The process by which all this was brought about has been, philosophically, a most interesting one. The movement has been from Roman Catholicism to the Church of England, from the Church of England to the grim Independent churches with their Calvinistic creed, from these to Umtarianism, and from Unitarianism to Agnosticism, with an accom panying reaction to other sects, Uberalized and softened by the movement of modern thought. The breaking down of the old ecclesiastical system, however, had many results even more important than those in the field of religion itself From the begin ning there had been great intellectual activity among the people who founded Boston and settled Massachu setts ; but this activity for many generations was confined to religion and politics. Outside these two subjects the mental energy of the people was devoted to the hard struggle, first for eJtistence, and then for ma- The City of Boston. 209 terial prosperity. In both they were abundantly suc cessful. At the time of the Revolution Boston was one of the most thriving towns in all his Majesty's domin ions. Then came the siege, with disaster and decline in its train. But the town soon recovered from the check it then received, and after the adoption of the constitution its prosperity advanced again at quickened pace. The foundation of the wealth of Boston was in com merce; and this which had built it up in colonial days, received an enormous extension during the wars which succeeded the French Revolution, and which graduaUy drove almost aU neutral flags but that of the United States from the seas. The people of New Eng land took speedy advantage of their opportunity, and New England vessels penetrated into every part of the globe and grasped the commerce which their rivals had been compeUed to abandon. They very nearly absorbed the carrying trade of the world ; and it was owing to their wonderful success and corresponding profits that the trouble began between the United States and Eng land which culminated in the war of 1812. In the first decade of the century a Salem merchant was said to be the largest ship-owner in the world, and he was but a type of a class whose headquarters were at Boston. Jefferson's and Madison's embargoes, however, fol lowed by the war of 1812, forced Boston investments into another channel, that of manufactures and in dustrial enterprise. The war, which in effect was a prohibitory tariff, was followed by tariff laws avow edly for the purpose of protection; and the move ment of business toward domestic industry gained 14 2IO Boston. rapidly in strength and volume. On the new field thus opened, Boston capital soon reaped even larger rewards than it had ever gained upon the ocean. With the invention of the locomotive the business of Boston took stiU another turn; and the surplus capital accumu lated in commerce and manufactures began to pour into railroads, and at a still later time to go out in large masses for the development of the West in aU possible directions. The outcome of this has been an enormous accumulation of capital in Massachusetts; for despite the many losses that were certain to come from so many new undertakings the general result has been one of great profit, and the wealth of the modern city and of the State has thus been raised to a point exceeding that of all but one or two of the States of the Union. This accumulation of capital aud growth of wealth which be gan at the opening of the present century, coupled with the decline of the old religious severity, gave scope also for intellectual development in fields hitherto untried. To one class this great business prosperity brought lei sure, and to another it promised rewards for success in other directions than trade, politics, or religion. In the early days the clergy had been the one educated class, and it was for their especial benefit that Harvard Col lege had been founded. Now the professions of law and medicine rose into prominence, and offered careers and prizes which had been before unknown. Literature from the beginning had a firm foothold in New England, and in the eighteenth century was far more considerable and important than in the other colonies. It was during this period that the literary genius of Massachusetts produced Jonathan Edwards's The City of Boston. 211 remarkable essay on " The Freedom of the WUl," Frank lin's "Poor Richard," and the rhymes of "Mother Goose," usually attributed to Thomas Fleet of Boston. These were works which differed widely in character and importance, but they aU had the quality which gives a place in the literature of the world. The mass of Puritan literature however was extensive rather than important, and was confined almost exclusively to local history and religious tracts. In the nineteenth century all this changed. With the widening in the number of pursuits, and with the disappearance of the notion that learmng was the special attribute of the clergy, the Uterary talents of the people took on a broad expansion. To the first half of the nineteenth century belong in the field of history Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, and a lit tle later Parkman ; then there were besides Hawthorne, Longfellow, "Whittier, Holmes, Emerson, and LoweU. This group of men, whose writings now form a part of the great Uterature of the English-speaking people, gath ered naturally in Boston and gave it its Uterary reputa tion, bringing at the same time in their train many less distinguished writers, who have contributed to spread New England thought throughout the continent. The purely intellectual development in literature and the learned professions, when freed from the trammels of the earlier civilization, went forward much more rapidly than that which was more affected by the cus toms and habits of daily life. Amusements were of slow growth in Puritan soil. The theatre, despite Governor Hancock, came in, as has been said, at the close of the eighteenth century, but it was not till fifty years later that it became thoroughly established ; and since then. 212 Boston. curiously enough, Boston has been reputed to have in proportion to its size the largest population of theatre goers in the United States. Art was of slower growth, although the prejudice against it was less strong than against the theatre. Copley and Stuart were great names of the earlier days, and since their time artists have slowly increased in number ; but it has not been until the last twenty years that a Museum of Art could be established and find strength to thrive in Boston. Music was another of the arts held in little favour by the Puritans, who never seem to have carried it much beyond that stage of devotional harmony represented by " leaders " and " lining." With the present century, how ever, the love of music and the interest in it have had a great and rapid development in Boston, and to-day it is second only to New York in this field, while the contribution of Massachusetts to the musicians of repu tation in the country has been larger than that of any other state. In this way, in law and in medicine, in literature and in art, as well as in other directions, there was a quick expansion when the freedom which came in the early years of the nineteenth century gave at last ample scope for the mental energy and versatility of the New Eng land people. In these respects, however, the change sprang merely from the liberation of thought effected by the decline of the religious system of the Puritans. The actual conflict between the contending principles which they planted is best seen, and can be fully realized, only in the great field of public questions, upon which the history of both State and Nation has turned during the present century. The City of Boston. 213 The defect of the Puritan, — and he stamped deep upon his State, his church, and his descendants all his qualities good and bad, — the defect of the Puritan is obvious enough to any one. He had an intense faith, beside which the beliefs of the present day look pale and colourless ; he was a bold soldier aud a sagacious politician ; he was as industrious in worldly affairs as he was fervent in spiritual things ; and his worldly prosperity rose as high as energy and thrift could build it. His standard of morals was lofty, his view of life and its responsibilities was serious. Where he failed was in that tolerance and breadth of mind which are more common in modern days than they were in his. He saw clearly and plainly but he saw narrowly; he was rigid, harsh, and often relentless and unforgiving. The lighter side of life, which breeds liberality of opin ion more quickly than anything else, was an abomina tion to the Puritans of the days of Laud and Cromwell. The existence which they led may have been satisfac tory to their spiritual wants, but in every other way it was grim and narrow to the last degree. As years went by and the descendants of the original Puritans grew more liberal, their manners softened ; and as has been already pointed out, the fine arts and the pleasures of life came in. The leading qualities of the Puritan character and belief, which they had impressed upon State and Church and society alike, were thus softened and modified; but they still cropped out with unvarying- regularity whenever occasion served. If we study the phases of public opinion in Boston during some of her seventy years of city government, we shall find, if we look rightly, the reforming spirit of the Puritan always 214 Boston. ready to revolt against established things if they seemed unrighteous, and side by side with it the intolerant nar rowness of the early theocracy and its followers. After the Federalists disappeared, the political party which was dominant in Massachusetts and in Boston, and which furnished mayors and aldermen to the city, was the Whig party, eminently conservative and re spectable, interested in tariffs and internal improve ments and averse to all forms of agitation. Yet it was during that very quiet and highly respectable time that the Antislavery movement began. There in Boston could be seen, as any one might have predicted who knew the history of the people, the two Puritan principles again in active conflict. It was to Boston that Garrison came, a poor, unaided young man, to begin his warfare against slavery. It was in the streets of Boston that he was assailed by a nfob, which contemporary authority tells us was made up of persons of property and standing ; and it is also in a Boston street that his statue stands to-day to bear witness to his deeds. It was there a few years later that Phillips made his great speech on the Lovejoy murder ; and then, so far as was possible, was ostracized in consequence of it and of his further sup port of Abolition principles, from the society in which his family had long been honoured. It may be said, and with a great deal of truth, that however righteous such men as Garrison and PhiUips may have been they were fanatics of an extreme type, with whom society could not at the beginning be ex pected to have sympathy. They were doing their work, and a great work, in arousing the conscience of the coun try ; but they offered no practical solution of the terri- The City of Boston. 215 ble problem of slavery, and their doctrines seemed to threaten the subversion of law and order, and of the union of the States. But if excuses can be found for Boston society in this respect, no such defence can be made for its conduct toward those who were fighting the same battle as Garrison and Phillips within the limits of the Constitution, along well-trodden paths, and by methods which if slower than those of the Abo litionists had the merit of being both lawful and effec tive. It was at this very period that John Quincy Adams, single-handed and alone, began in behalf of the right of petition the great constitutional battle against slavery, wMch culminated thirty years later in the elec tion of Lincoln, the Civil War, and the Emancipation of the slaves, as Adams had foreseen, through the war powers of the Constitution. How was this lawful and constitutional champion of free speech dealt with by the men who felt that they were entitled to lead in Boston by right of inteUigence, wealth, and inheritance ? For an answer I quote the words of Mr. Adams's biog rapher, Mr. John T. Morse, who states the case most admirably : — " At home Mr. Adams had not the countenance of that class in society to which he naturally belonged. A second time he found the chief part of the gentlemen of Boston and its vicinity, — the leading lawyers, the rich merchants, the suc cessful manufacturers, — not only opposed to him, but enter taining towards him sentiments of personal dislike and even vindictiveness. This stratum of the community having a natural distaste for disquieting agitation, and influenced by class feeling, — the gentlemen of the North sympathizing with the aristocracy of the South, — could not make common 2i6 Boston. cause with the Antislavery people. Fortunately, however, Mr. Adams was returned by a country district where the old Puritan instincts were still strong. The intelligence and free spirit of New England were at his back, and were fairly represented by him ; in spite of high-bred disfavor they carried him gallantly through the long struggle. The people of the Plymouth district sent him back to the House every two years from the time of his first election to the day of his death, aud the disgust of the gentlemen of Boston was after all of trifling consequence to him, and of no serious influence upon the course of history. The old 1&&>n England instinct was in him as it was in the mass of the people ; that instinct made him the real exponent of New England thought, belief, and feeling, and that same instinct made the great body of voters stand by him with unswerving constancy. When his fellow representatives almost to a man deserted him, he was sustained by many a token of sympathy and admiration coming from among the people at large. Time and the history of the United States have been his potent vindi cators. The conservative, conscienceless respectability of wealth was, as is usually the case with it in the annals of the Anglo-Saxon race, quite iu the wrong, and predestined to well-merited defeat. It adds to the honor due to Mr. Adams that his sense of right was true enough, and that his vision was clear enough to lead him out of that strong thraldom which class feelings, traditions, and comradeship are wont to exercise." Much the same fate was meted out to those who trod in Mr. Adams's footsteps. His own son, Charles Francis Adams, and Sumner, Palfrey, and all the other early Free SoUers fared little better than the Abolition ists at the hands of Boston society. "When Richard H. Dana defended the fugitive slaves with a noble The City of Boston. 217 disregard of personal consequences, and rendered with no Uttle personal peril a service to humanity which has given his name an honoured place in our history, he was frowned on and rebuked by that portion of the com munity in which he had been born and brought up, and which esteemed itself the best. These same people in large part went, as was quite natural, with Daniel Web ster. When the great statesman on March 7 " made the great refusal," some of his followers in Boston broke away; but the majority remained unmoved. Even in 1860 the society of Boston which had wealth, education, and lineage lagged for the most part far behind the rest of New England, just as they did in the days preceding the Revolution. Despite all that had happened they were stUl averse to agitation, and still hostile to the Antislavery movement. They satisfied their political consciences by voting for Bell and Everett, — the most meaningless of tickets, supported by the remnant of the Whigs, and with no practical value except respectabil ity. But while they hesitated, the body of the people in Boston and elsewhere had been roused against the wrong of human slavery, as they had been roused against other wrongs of old time. The sight of Sims and Burns forced back into slavery through the streets of Boston awakened a fierce spirit of resistance among the New England people which the majority of respectable society in Boston failed to understand, and with which it was unable to cope. Thus the Antislavery struggle went on its way in the city as the earlier struggle to suppress the Quakers had gone on in the town. When the war came, the. old Puritan spirit rose high and strong, and the people of 2i8 Boston. Boston and Massachusetts gave their blood and treas ure without stint in defence of the Union. Then the principle which was right triumphed, the war was fought to a victorious end, slavery perished, and the Union was saved. Early in these eventful years, and after a brief season of silence and meditation, respectable Boston came to the conclusion that it had never stoned the prophets, and in realitj^ had been always against slavery, which now had joined itself with disunion. Once convinced of these facts they quietly joined the majority party, and proceeded for the most part to bear their share in saving the country. We see the old Puritan spirit of repression cropping out among a very different class of people in the sack ing and burning of the Ursuline Convent at Charlestown, in the days when Roman Catholicism was still new in Boston, and when a nunnery filled the minds of the Boston teamsters with horror and alarm. We see an other expression of it in a wholly different way, and from an entirely different point of view, in the prosecu tion of Abner Kneeland for blasphemy, because he pub Ushed a free-thinking paper called the " Investigator," having reasoned himself in Puritan fashion from one church into another more liberal, untU at last he rea soned himself out of any church at all. Incidents like these, now well-nigh forgotten, al though not more than half a century old, show the endurance of the early traits, and also their modifica tion and change with the advance of years and the ex perience of defeat. As I have already said, the great defect of the early Puritans was their bitter intolerance of differences of The City of Boston. 219 opinion. They were no worse in this respect than most of the people of that time. They were probably indeed somewhat better; for they had other and ameliorating sides. But harsh narrowness was conspicuous in their characters ; and if a man differed from them on a relig* ious point, which was then the subject that alone ab sorbed their thoughts, they beat and imprisoned him, and in some cases hanged him, until finally that partic ular form of intolerance and repression utterly broke down. It appears and reappears again and again, some times on great matters, sometimes on small ; milder too at each coming, but always with the familiar features. It was the repressive spirit of the early Puritans which visited condign political and social punishment upon John Quincy Adams, because in 1808 he dared to differ from the all-powerful Federalists of Boston. History has vindicated his position ; but it matters not whether he was right or wrong. The ruling class in Boston treated him for a difference of opinion on a public question, and for his attitude toward a certain public man, as he would have deserved to have been treated if he had com mitted some dishonourable or criminal act. This was an almost purely personal matter -, but it was the same spirit which urged the mob against Garrison, and which drove PhiUips and Sumner, Palfrey, Dana, and others, for the time being, out of that portion of the population which was pleased to call itself society. Closely joined with the defect was a foible. The defect was intolerance ; the foible was respectability. All readers of novels will remember the character of Mrs. Catherick in the " Woman in White," the one ambi tion of whose disreputable life, turned on the surface to 220 Boston. better things, was to secure a recognitio'n of her hard- earned respectability by having the clergyman bow to her as she sat at her window. Wilkie Collins, when he drew this character, displayed in evil and repulsive form the foible for respectability and for conformity to certain standards so deeply rooted among the English- speaking people everywhere. The picture was grossly exaggerated, but nowhere else could he have found that curious mania which Carlyle held up to the jeers of the world as "Gigmanity." It is a laudable thing to be re spectable ; and the love of respectability is an altogether innocent and commendable passion. It is a very weak thing, on the other hand, to sacrifice one's opinions because persons who set themselves up as respectable do not think these opinions consonant with what they choose to call respectability. The foibles of the Puritan like his defects, however, have so faded and weakened in the present day that they are hardly visible. Yet his intolerance is an in stinct which has never died, and is a curious example of the enormous strength of heredity, especially in a vig orous race. It is very feeble now, and is rather ludi crous than otherwise ; but it is still there. It was an extremely real and dangerous thing in earlier times, when it meant something. At the present day it is no longer dangerous ; and when it ceased to be formidable, it lost its only claim to consideration. The mastodon would have been an extremely terrible animal to meet ; but we can afford to regard its bones with curiosity, and to look upon its footprints in the limestone with a smile. Such in one direction has been the fate of that stern The City of Boston. 22 1 spirit which placed Cromwell on the throne of England and founded the Puritan commonwealths in America. We can pardon in a man of Cromwell's day an intoler ance which was characteristic of the times, and which he was ever ready to back up with the sword ; but when it shows itself in its modern form, there is nothing in it to be admired. It is an heir-loom which might better be consigned to the dust-heap. It is fast finding its way there ; yet it still lives on, — an interesting feature in the society of the great city which has arisen where the Puritan town once stood. It has fallen far, and is now nothing more than a little mild parochialism. The foible for respectability and the intolerance of differences of opinion have come down to a feeling of distrust and an attitude of coldness toward all those who do not agree with the controlling view of the moment in the parish. Even yet we have not grown up so far as to be rid of our awe of the beadle and the vestryman. There are many who cannot yet look far enough into the world beyond to see that our beadle and his vestrymen are really not very important outside the parish bounds. Woe, however, to the daring inhabitant of that parish who ventures to differ from the authorities. He shaU not sit in the vestry, nor shall he ever become a beadle. Yet after aU, the foible and the defect which the Puri tans bequeathed to their descendants have been sinking and fading more and more with each succeeding year; and have been replaced by a wider toleration and a more generous treatment of other men, for the love of freedom and hatred of wrong ingrained in the Puritan are always sure to gain the mastery in the end. At the same time the other qualities which made the Puritan 222 Boston. great and powerful among men in his day and genera tion, have as yet neither faded nor weakened. They have been the secret of the success which Boston has gained, and of the services which her people have been able to render to their State and to the Union. The virtues of the Puritan, like his defects, have changed as everything must change. They have progressed because everything has progressed; but they have not died out, as those persons who hold to the good-old-times view of life would have us believe. The love of country and of race is still powerful. The public spirit which was born of membership in a State where religion was the test of citizenship, is still vigorous. The sense of the debt due from each man to the commonwealth still holds sway. We can see this sense of responsibility in the matter of public benefactions. The Puritan was not naturally an open-handed man with money, for he earned it with difficulty and knew its value ; but yet he never failed to do his duty to the public in this respect. Compared with the wealth of modern times, the gifts of John Harvard and the gift of the Bay Colony to the college at Cambridge were the most munificent ever consecrated in this country to the cause of education. N® finer monument was ever reared than the noble university which has grown from these early gifts, made by men clinging to the edge of the wilderness two hundred and fifty years ago. It stands there a perpetual and Uving record of the Puritan belief in education, and of that public spirit which is not only generous but -wise. The city of Boston has never faltered in the path that John Harvard marked out ; and the great college to-day is the The City of Boston. 223 best proof that the Puritan virtues have lived on in their descendants, and that the higher education as well as the pubUc school have been as dear to the sons as they were to the fathers. It is this same public spirit which has filled Boston with noble charities, with hospi tals and libraries, and with every kind of institution for the benefit of those to whom fortune has not been as kind as to her favoured few. It was the independent spirit of the Puritans, who refused submission in matters of conscience to the Church, either of Rome or England, which placed Boston and Massachusetts first among the communities of the colonies that raised the standard of revolution against England ; and again, first of the com munities of the United States which set their faces against the extension, and then against the existence, of slavery. It was the Puritan love of learning which for generations has made a college training the ambition of every thoughtful boy in New England, and which has caused many families to pinch and save, as did the Scotch peasants, so that the eldest born might go to the Univer sity. The energy and fearless spirit of the Puritans which brought them to the shores of the new world at the beginning of the seventeenth century, in later times have sent them out in swarms from the parent hive to settle in new States, and have carried Boston capital into the lands of the West, to be returned to the far- sighted enterprise of its possessors a thousand fold. That the picture is all rose-coloured, no sensible man would pretend. That Boston, like other cities, has her dangers to be confronted and her difficulties to be over come, every one knows ; but on the whole she has been true to her traditions. There have been ups and downs ; 224 Boston. but she has never wholly lost sight of her responsibili ties, for the great body of her people has always been sound at heart. Her society has never yet been domi- . nated by mere wealth, although the fortunes of the present day are so great that they are threatening to bring this result, as they have done in other cities. The great struggle for the preservation of the Union showed that the fighting spirit of the Puritans lived on in their children, and that their patriotism and devotion to a great cause were as pure and strong as they had ever been, and as capable of heroism and sacrifice. What the future may bring no man can teU. Great and difficult problems confront this generation and the next; and Boston has her share in them, and in the fate of the mighty empire of which she is a part. The path is beset with difficulties and dangers ; but if the city founded by the Puritans is only true to her traditions, she may face what is yet to be with confidence, and have faith that she can overcome the perils of the future as she has pre vailed over those of the past. INDEX. ABOLITION Abolition movement, 214-218. Acadia, struggle of Aulnay and La Tour over, 41 ; Sir VVilliam Phipps's expedition against, 84. Adams, Charles Francis, 216. Adams, John, notes of Otis's speech, 123 ; defends Captain Preston, 136 ; escorts General Washington, 174; opinion of Hancock, 176 ; presi dency of, 180 ; supported by Gov ernor Sumner, 180 ; strife in administration of, 181. Adams, John Quincy, position on the embargo question, 185, 187 ; efforts against slavery, 213, 215, 216 ; op position to, 219. Adams, Samuel, leads town meeting, 129; drafts circular-letter, 130; ac tion in regard to Boston Massacre, 135, 136; advocates Committee of Correspondence, 141 ; reports on tea question, 144 ; Gage's plots against, 150 ; social position, 161 ; characteristic of, 168; attitude to ward Federal Constitution, 172 ; defeated by Fisher Ames, 174 ; supports Hancock, 176 ; presides at Dumouriez banquet, 178; con duct m treaty riots, 179; retire ment, 180. Adams family, position in Eevolu- tionai'y times, 167. Admiralty Court, papers of Kegister burned, 126. Agnosticism, 208. AUSTIN Agriculture, eiiects of embargo on, 186. Albemarle, Duke of, aids Sir William Phipps in search for treasure, 84. Aldermen, Board of, instituted, 194. Allen, James, discussion at his house about meeting-house troubles, 74. Almshouse, the flrst, 106. Ames, Fisher, position after the Eevo lution, 167 ; defeat of Samuel Ad ams by, 173, 174. Amiens, Peace of, 180. Amusements, 107, 111, 112, 177, 211, 212. Andros, Lady, funeral of, 76. Andros, Sir Edmund, arrival at Bos ton, 70 ; governorship of, 70, 71, 74, 75, 77-79 ; rising against, 79 ; arrested and imprisoned, 79 ; de parts for England, 80; arrives in England, 82. Antislavery movement, 214-218. "Arbella," the, arrival at Salem, 15. Aristocracy, 113, 166. Art, growth of, 212. Assembly, the, 112. Assistance, writs of, 121-124. Assistants, early regulations for elec tion of, 27. See also Court of Assistants. Atlantic Ocean, 23. Aulnay, Charles d', rivalry with La Tour, 41. Austin, Charles, shot by Selfridge, 182. 15 226 Index. BacTc Bay, the, 18, 19. Baldwin, Loammi, fortifies Boston, 190. Bancroft, George, 211. Bank, wrangles over establishment of, 95. Baptists, struggle with Established Church, 39 ; persecution of, 45. Barbers' shops, closed on Lord's Day, 116. Bastille, fall of, compared with Bos ton Massacre, 134, 135. Beacon Hill, insurrectionary stan dard raised on, 79. Bears, 44. Beast, marks of the, 72. Belcher, Gov. Jonathan, 98, 99. Bellingham, Gov. Eichard, 54. Bellomont, Earl of, governor, 90, 91. Benefactions, public, 222. 223. Bennett, M.T., account of Boston, 108, 115. Bernard, Francis, succeeds to gover norship, 120 ; character, 120, 121, 129 ; takes refuge in castle, 126 , refuses to call the legislature, 129 ; sails for England, 131. Bigelow, Timothy, represents Boston at Hartford Convention, 191. Blaclcstone, William, 9, 10, 16, 44. Blackstone's Point, 16. " Blessing of the Bay," the, 20. Bloody Brook, battle of, 59. Board of Customs, 129. Board of Trade (Eng.), policy with regard to colonies, 120. "Body of Liberties," adopted, 40. Bonaparte. See Napoleon. Books, scarcity of, 67. Book-stores, 105, 106. Boston, Eng., John Cotton leaves, 32. Boston Harbour, Capt. John Smith's map of, 4; Miles Standish's explo ration of, 4 ; tirst permanent settle ment on, 6 ; settlements in, 9. CAMBRIDGE Boston Massacre, 132-136; lesson of, 137. Boston Port Bill, 146-148, 186. Boston Tea-Party, the, 143. Bowdoin, Gov. James, 170. Bradstreet, Simon, 63, 76; mission to London, 50; returns to office, 79. Brattle Street Church, Constitutional Convention in, 171. Breed's Farm, 155. Bridger, Captain, actions of General Court and royal commission at his house, 54. British troops, quartered on Common, 130; irritation caused by, 132 ; first collision with, 132. Brown, Chad, 34. Buckingham, Duke of, interest in New England, 5. Buildings, 21, 44, 65, 67, 105, 177. Bulkeley, Peter, sent as agent to England, 61. Bunker Bill, 9; battle of, 155-157; results of the battle, 156, 157. Burgoyne, General, reinforces Gen eral Gage, 154. Burial customs, 72. Burke, Edmund, opposes Boston Port Bill, 146. Burnaby, Andrew, account of Bos ton, 104. Burnett, Gov. William, 97. Burns, Anthony, rendition of, 217. Cabot, George, President of Hartford Convention, 191. Cabot family, explorations of the, 3; position in Revolutionary times, 167. Calef, Robert, controversy with Cot ton Mather, 88. Cambridge, agreement at, 13; Per cy's march tlirough, 152; Wash ington assumes command of troops at, 157. Index. 227 CANADA Canada, Sir William Phipps's scheme for conquest of, 89, Cape Ann, founding of fishing-sta tion at, 11. Cape Cod, rounded bj' the Dutch, 3; arrival of Pilgrims at, 4. Carlyle, Thomas, 219. Con-, Sir Robert, royal commission er, 52. Cartwright, Colonel, royal commis sioner, 52, 54. Castle, military at, 149. Chamber of Commerce, action on the Jay treaty, 179. Channing, William EUery, 207, 208. Charities, public, 106, 223. Charles I., misgovernment by, 21, 22 ; beheading of, 75. Charles IT., Restoration of, 49; ad dress to, 49; proclaimed king, in Massachusetts, 50; letters from, 50, 52; retum of royal commis sioners to Boston, 53 ; insubordina tion to, on account of Navigation laws, 66; portrait of, 122. Charles River, 9, 16, 18. Charlestown, site of, 9; settlement at, 15; first Court of Assistants held at, 16; abandonment of first settlement at, 16; shipment of tea to, 142; Paul Revere's watch in, 151; Percy's retreat through, 153; neglected by General Gage, 154 ; Genera! Ward advances on, 154, 155 i fired by Howe, 155; burning of the convent at, 218. Charter, the city, 195, 196; amend ments to, 200. Charter, the Provincial, definition of rights under, 50; secretion of, 52; vacating of , 64 ; surrender of, forms epoch in city's history, 68 ; effects of loss of, 71; supplementary, 96, 97; scheme to abolish, 124; swept away, 148, " Chevy Chase," 152. COMMERCIAL Christ Cliurch, signal lantern in, 151. Church, the flrst independent, 25; democracy in, 26 ; enormous power of, 27; collections in, 116. Church and State, Puritan idea of, 23, 37-39; union of, 26 ; Williams's doctrines concerning, 35, 37 ; strug gle between, 45. Church covenant, signing of, 16; text of, 25. Churches, 106. Church festivals, abolition of, 72. Church of England, adieu of Puri tans to, 15. See also Episcopal, Episcopalian. Church services, under Puritans, 72. Cities, age of, 2. City government, change from town to, 193, 194. Civil war, 165, 166, 217, 218. Cleaveland, Captain, voyages of, 183. Clergy, powers of, 27; exemption from taxation, 107; influence of, 206. Cleverly, H., 69. Climate, hardships of, 19, 109. Clinton, General, reinforces General Gage, 154. Clive, Robert, 153. Clubs, 112. Coaches, use of, 107, 108. Coffee-houses, 111, 112. Coinage, exercise of right of, 50. CoUiris, Wilkie, 219. Colonial condition, close of, 103, 104. Colonies, community of interest with Boston, 147. Commerce, rise of, 20; prosperity, 45, 104, 164, 180, 181, 203, 209; effect of Boston Port Bill on, 147, 148; effect of Revolutionary War on, 165 ; afiected by Anglo-French war, 183; effects of the embargo on, 185; decay of, 189; effect of war of 1812 on, 191. Commercial relations, 41. 228 Index. committee Committee of Correspondence, es tablished, 141 ; action on tea ques tion, 143, 146 ; importance of, 148. Committee of Safety, 150. Committee of Supplies, 150. Common, the, executions on, 47 ; a popular resort, 105, 112; regula tions for Lord's Day, 115; encamp ment of British troops on, 130, 149 ; embarkation of troops from, 150; celebration of Federal Constitution on, 173. Common Council, instituted, 194. Common-prayer book, first use at burials in Boston, 69. Company of Northern Virginia, 10. Comptroller of Customs, house plun dered, 126. Conant, Roger, founds Salem, 12. Concord, storage of munitions of war at, 150; British march on, 150, 151; alarm received in, 151. Congregationalists, 106, 207. Congress, first American, 127. Connecticut, joins New England Con federation 41 ; visit of royal com- , missioners to, 53 ; troops in Bunker Hill fight, 155. Constitution, an early, 13. Constitution of the United States, first principles of, 41; ratification of, 171-173. Constitutional Convention, 168. Continental Congress, call for, 148, supported by Massachusetts, 149. Convention Parliament, 49. Convent riots, 218. Cooper, Jflmes Fenimore, "Lionel Lincoln," 109. Copley, John Singleton, 111, 212, Corruption, in custom house, 121 ; in politics, 198-200. Cotton, John, joins the colony, 32 ; opposition to his doctrines, 32 ; sup ports Ann Hutchinson, 36. Council for New England, 5, 10, 11. dextee Coimcil House, reading of William III.'s proclamation at, 79. Court influences, 107. Court of Assistants, elects Winthrop governor, 14; first held at Charles town, 16; order the name of Bos ton, 17 ; first business of, 26. Court of Chancery, vacates charter, 64. Court Street, Washington's stay in, 174. Cradock, Matthew, 13. Cromwell, Oliver, 20, 22, 24, 32, 48, 49. Cromwell, Richard, attitude of Mas sachusetts toward, 48. Custom house, corruption in, 121. Customs, Board of, 129. " Daily Advertiser," the, 190. Dana, R. H., 216, 217, 219. Dancing, 107, 111. Danvers, military at, 149. ^'¦Dartmouth," the, tea-ship, 143. Davenport, Captain, placed in com mand of the castle, 52 Davis, Captain, appointed to meet royal commissioners, 52. Davis, Mr., remonstrates with An dros about meeting-house, 75. Dawes, Rufus, 151. Debt, city, 200, SOL Declaration of Indulgence, 80, 81. Delano, Captain, voyages of, 183. Democracy, in the church and politi cal bodies, 26, 27 ; in civil govern ment, 29; conjbined with religious tests, 31 ; .Tohn Cotton's tilt against, 32; rise of, 168 ; advance of, 177; keynote to successful govemment by, 200. Deputy-governor, early regulations for election of, 27. Dexter, Samuel, nrgues against the embargo, 186; position in war of 1812, 189. Index. 229 DORCHESTER Dorchester, 11. Dorchester Associates, the, 11. Dorchester Heights, neglected by General Gage, 154 ; Washington's action from, 159, 160. Dress, 107, 111, 113, 176, 177. DudCey, Joseph, self-interest of, 63; appointed president of provisional government, 64 ; term of office, 69 ; appointed governor, 91; character and career, 91-94 ; the people's hatred for, 92. Dudley, Thomas, signs church cove nant, 15, 16, 25; elected governor, 33; at Lady Andres's funeral, 76; reverence for, 91. Dummer, Lieutenant-Governor, 96, 97. Dumouriez, Charles Fran9ois, cele bration in honour of, 178. Dunton, John, account of Boston, 105. Dutch, expedition against, 52, 53. Dwellings, 67, 109-111. East Boston, 9. East Cambridge, movement of troops through, 150. East India Company, effect of non importation agreement on, 141j 142. Ecclesiastical bodies and influences, 206-208. Eclipse, a portentous, 58. Education, provisions for, 31, 42 ; fruits of, 45, 48 ; liberal policy in, 66; fostered, 67; advancement of, 106; measures under Mayor Quin cy, 196 ; Puritan love for, 223. See also Harvard College. Edwards, Jonathan, 210, 211. Eliot, Mr. , remonstrates with Andros about meeting-house, 75. Embargo, repeal of, 30, 188; estab lished, 185 ; effects of, 185, 186, 191, 209 ; opposition to, 186, 187. Emerson, R. W., 211. episcopalians Endicott, Jobn, expedition of, 13 ; elected assistant, 14 ; turns over government to Winthrop, 15 ; gov ernorship ot, 45 ; Puritanism of, 48; cuts cross irom the flag, 48, 72; death, 54. Enforcing Act, the, 188. England, causes leading to the emi gration of Puritans, 14; the great rebellion in, 21; national traits, 22 ; fanaticism in, 23 ; flrst severance of ties with, 26; emigration from, 32, 203 ; alarmed at growth of col ony, 39; the Restoration in, 49; attention turned to the colonies, 49 ; reception of agents in, 50; relaxes measures against Massachusetts, 56 ; agents sent to, 61 ; Court of Chancery vacates charter, 64 ; Wil liam III.'s landing in, 78; insur rectionary feeling against, 78 j witchcraft in, 85; attempts to re press manufactures in colonies, 94, 95, 107 ; beginning of colonies' flnal struggle with, 101 ; policy toward colonies, 118-120; reforms in, 120; constitutional controversy with, 122, 123 ; feeling toward, on passage of Stamp Act, 126 ; recep tion of news of resistance, 127 ; re tains right to legislate for colonies, 128; sends troops to Boston, 130 ; injury to commerce of, by non importation agreements, 132; dread of union of colonies, 141 ; effect of the "tea-party's " action in, 145 ; importance of Boston to, 163; Jay treaty with, 179; jealousy of, 184; war of 1812 with, 188-191 ; depend ence of Boston for luxuries on, 191. Episcopacy, jealousy of, 117. Episcopal burial service, 69. Episcopal Church, innovations of, 117. Episcopalians, privileges granted to, 69 ; supported by Andros, 74. 230 Index. EPISCOPAL Episcopal marriage service, 69. Era of Good Feeling, 192. Erskine arrangement, the, 188. Essex, troops from, 59, 153; position of families after Revolution, 167. Etiquette, difference between Han cock and Washington on, 175. Executive Council, administers gov ernment, 91. Fairs, 105. Fanaticism, 23, 46. Faneuil, Peter, 105. Faneuil Hall, presented to city, 105; call of meeting to consider tea question, 143; British festivities in, 158; Dumouriez banquet in, 178. Federal Constitution. See Consti tution OF United States. "Federal Constitution," the, 173. Federalism, germ of, 41 ; tendency toward, 169; Boston the centre of, in New England, 174. Federalists, successes of, 173, 175, 180, 189; downfall of, 180-182, 193; hatred of Jefferson, 181; feel ing against, 183, attitude toward England, 184 ; attitude on the em bargo question, 186 ; weakening of, 188 ; retention of power in Massa chusetts, 192; flnal disappearance, 193; influence in city politics, 195; the clergy among, 207. Federation, early principles of, 30. Ferries, prohibited, 148. Ferry, North End, 115. Fire Department, organization under Mayor Quincy, 196. First Church, Eoger Williams called to, 35. Fisheries, rise of, 20; effects of em bargo on, 186. Fleet, Thomas, 211. Flower of Essex, the, 59. Folkmoot, the, 66. Food supply, 67. Forms and ceremonies, Puritan ideas of, 72. Fort Hill, burning of stamp-distrib utor on, 126 ; military at, 149. Fortifications, by Howe and Gage, 154. Fort Strong, 190. Fox, Charles, opinion of the Jay treaty, 179. France, alliance with United States, 82 ; organizes Indians for warfare, 88, 89; war with England, 99, 100; downfall of power in America, 100, 103 ; causes of Revolution in, 119 , infiuence on American polities, 178; troubles with, ISO; benetits of the embargo to, 186 ; immigration from, 202; influence of French Revolu tion in Boston, 178. Franchise, change in, 53. Frankland, Sir Harry, 109. Franklm, Benjamin, signs treaty at Paris, 82 ; appointed agent of Mas sachusetts in England, 140; "Poor Richard," 211. - Frary, Mr., remonstrates with An dros about meeting-house, 75. "Freedom of the Will," the, 211. Freemen, provisions for, 26. Free Soilers, 216, Free speech, 29. Free trade, change to protection ideas, 192. Gage, General, appointed governor, 147; dissolves legislature, 148; proclamation against non-importa tion agreement, 148; character, 149, 150; action at inception of Revolution, 150; inactivity of, 154. Game, 67. Gai-n'sore, William Lloyd,214,215,219. Gedney, Mr., 76. General Court, the second, provides terms of freedom in colony, 26; Index. 231 the third, 27; regulations concern ing, 28; establishes Harvard Col lege, 31; opposes John Cotton's doctrines, 32; expels Roger Wil liams, 35 ; division of, 41 ; action on question of allegiance to Eng land, 50; action on Charles II.' s letter, 51, 53 ; action in regard to the royal commission, 52; attitude toward Charles II., 53, 55; defies the royal commissioners, 54; or ders day of fasting for vacation of charter, 64; final acts under the charter, 64, 65; grants confirmed by William III., 82; refuses to pay Bellomont's salarj-, 91; refuses to rebuild fort at Pemaquid, 93 ; atti tude on salary question, 97; rela tions with Governor Bernard, 120. See also House of Rfjresenta- TivES; Legislature. Genet, Edmond Charles, insults of, 178. George, Captain, 75. George I., accession, 94; death, 97. eeoi-^e //., 97. , George III., accession, 103 ; address from Congress to, 127; sanctions repeal of Stamp Act, 128. Germany, traces of land laws from, 28 ; immigration from, 203. Gerry, Elbridge, position in Revo lutionary times, 167; elected gov emor, 188. Gerrymandering, 188. Ghent, Treaty of, 191. Gill, Moses, succeeds to governor ship, 180. Glass, duty on, 129. Gloucester, settlement near, 11. Glover, Mrs., condemned for witch craft, 87. Goffe, Colonel, escapes to Boston, 49. Goodwin, John, 85. Goodwin children, case of the be witched, 85. HANOVER Gore, Governor, succeeded by Gerry, 188. Gorges claims to Maine and New Hampshire, 56, 61. Gorges heirs, Maine held to belong to, 61; rights in, bought by Mas sachusetts, 61. Gorges, Robert, sails for New Eng land, 5 ; quarrel with Thomas Weston, 6 ; return to England, 6 ; death, 6. Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, schemes of, 5; failure of scheme, 6; his attor ney, 9. Govei-nor, early regulations of elec tion of, 27 ; question of salary, 90, 91, 93-99, 102. Gray family, position in Revolution ary times, 167. Greece, comparison of modern cities with those of, 1. Green Dragon Tavern, Constitu tional meeting at, 172. Greenwich, Eng., meeting of Council for New England, 5. Grenville, George, policy toward colonies, 124, i25; hung in effigy, 127; fall of, 128. Halifax, Howe sails for, 160. Hamilton, Alexander, opinion of the Jay treaty, 179; death, 182; statue, 182. Hamilton, Captain, burial of, 75. Hampden, John, 20, 22, 32. Hancock, John, action in regard to tea, 142; Gage's plots against, 150 prominence, 161; patriotism, 166 retirement from governorship, 169 re-elected governor, 170, 171; at titude toward Federal Constitu tion, 172; difference with Wash ington on etiquette, 175; death, 176; character, 176, 177. Hanover Street, Captain Bridger's house on, 54. 232 Index. HARRISON Harrison, William, first one buried " with the common prayer book " in Boston, 69. Hartford Convention, the, 190, 191. Harvard, John, 222. Harvard College, foundation of, 31; first Commencement at, 42 ; Joseph Dudley's controversy with the Ma thers about, 93 ; popularity of, 117 ; founded for a special purpose, 310 ; a monument to public spirit, 222. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 8, 211. Hayne, Robert Y., Webster's reply to, 124. Haynes, John, elected governor, 33. Henchman, Daniel, 58. History, Boston's place in, 2. "History of Massachusetts," Hutch inson's, 85. " History of New England," 201. Holland, 22. Holmes, O. W., 211. Horses, 108. Hospitals, 223. House of Commons, petition from le gislature to, against Sugar Act, 125 ; petition from Congress to, 127 ; repeals Stamp Act, 128. House of Lords, memorial from Con gress to, 127. House of Representatives, quarrels with Governor Dudle}-, 94; opposi tion to Governor Shute, 96 ; action with Governor Belcher on salary question, 98 ; censures Governor Hutchinson, 140. See also Gen eral Court ; Legislature. Howe, General, fortifies the town, 154 ; reinforces General Gage, 154 ; in battle of Bunker HiU, 155, 156; evacuates Boston, 159, 160. Huguenots, immigi'ation of, 202. Hull, settlement of, 7, 9. Hutchinson, Ann, preaching, perse cution, and exile of, 36; case dis cussed, 37. JACKSON Hutchinson, Thomas, " History of Massachusetts," 85; chief justice, 122 ; house sacked, 126 ; takes refuge in castle, 126 ; assumes gov ernorship, 131 ; character, 131, 132 ; action in Boston Massacre, 134- 136; commissioned as governor, 140 ; delivers up castle to English troops, 140 ; action on tea question, 144; removed from governorship, 147. Iceland, emigration from, 3. Immigration, increased, 20, 31; re sults of, 33 ; character of early, 65 ; evils of unrestricted, 198, 199. Impost Bill, the, 96. Impounding, right of, 40. Im2yrovements, 29, 175, 197, 198, 201. Indented servants, trade in, 7. Itidependence, earlj' ideas of, 23 ; be ginning of events leading to, 101; first period of, 101, 102; birth of, 123 ; recognition of, 163. Indians, Pilgrims' first trade with, 4 ; destroy Blackstone's house, 10 ; massacres, 57, 59, 60 ; execution of, 59 ; wars with, 88. 90, 93, 95; the "tea-ship Indians." 144. Industry, 104, 117. Insolvency, general, 168. Intellectual activity, 208. Intolerance, 219, 220. " Investigator," the, 218. Ipswich, refusal to pay taxes in, 77. Ireland, immigration from, 202, 203. Isle of Wight, Joseph Dudley made governor of, 92. Italy, comparison of modern cities with those of, 1 ; immigration from, 203. Jackson family, position in Revolu tionary times, 167. Index. 233 JAMES I. James I,, interest in New Eng land, 5. James II., equips Sir WUliam Phipps for treasure-seeking, 83 ; portrait of, 122. Jay, John, treaty with England, 179 ; hanged in effigy, 179. Jefferson, Thomas, causes of his re tirement, 30 ; elected president, 180; opposition to, 181, 186; second term, 182 ; weakness of, 184, 185 ; his opinion of New Englanders, 204 ; Massachusetts' opinion of, 207. Jeffries, David, 69. Jeffries, Judge, 81. Johnson, Edward, description of Bos ton, 44. Johnson, Isaac, elected assistant, 14; signs church covenant, 15, 16, 25; death, 16. Johnson, Lady Arbella, 16. Keayne, Captain, 40. Kidd, Captain, capture of, 90. '¦ Kingfisher," the, 70. King Philip's war, beginning of, 57 ; destruction of Indian village, 59; death of Philip, 60. King's Chapel, 43; erection of, 77. King Street, 105. Kneeland, Abner, prosecuted for blasphemy, 218. Knowlton, Captain, advances on Charlestown, 155. Knox, Henry, action in Boston Massacre, 133 ; sent to bring guns from Ticonderoga to Boston, 158. Land, community in, 28, 29 ; sev eralty in, 29. Latin School, 58. La Tour, rivalry with Aulnay, 41. Laud, Archbishop, 14, 22, 74. Law, enforcement of, 116. LOWELL Lectures, 112. Lee family, position in Revolutionary times, 167. Legislation, provisions for securing, 28. Legislature, scheme to abolish, 124 ; makes declaration of principles, 127 ; obstinacy, 130 ; continues op position to Crown, 130. See also General Court ; House of Representatives. Leverett, Governor, 57. Lexington, action between minute- men and British troops at, 151; Percy's reinforcements at, 152. Liberty and Equality cakes, 178. Libraries, 223. Lighting, 198. Lincoln, Earl of, 14. Lincoln, General, crushes Sliays's re bellion, 170. " Lionel Lincoln," 109. Lisbon, earthquake, 109. Literature, 67, 106, 107, 210, 211. Lloyd, James, U. S. senator, 185. London, comparison of its age, 1; agent maintained in, by House of Representatives, 96; Boston com pared with, 104. Longfellow, H. W., 211. Long Lane, Constitutional Conven tion in meeting-house in, 171. Long Parliament, the, 20. Long Wharf, 105, 106, 132. Lord's Day, desecrations of, 73, 74; Puritan observance of, 114-116, 208. Lords Commissioners of Plantations, demand return of charter, 39. Louisburg, capture of, 100; celebra tions of capture, 112. Louisiana, annexation of, 181. Lovejoy murder, 214. Lowell, J. R., 211. Lowell family, position in Revolu tionary times, 167. 234 Index. Loyalists, 166. Loyalty, professions of, 55. Lyman, Mayor, 197. Madison, Pres. James, policy of, 188. Magistrates, provisions for election of, 28. Maine, Gorges' and Mason's claims lo, 56; judgment given for Gorges heirs, 61 ; rights of heirs bought by Massachusetts, 61 ; annexed to Mas sachusetts, 82. Mall, the, 112. Manufactures, attempts of England to repress, 94, 96, 107; effects of war of 1812 on, 192; growth of, 209. Marblehead, sibiaction of Agnes Sur riage from, 109. Mare Mount. See Mount Wollas- TON. Marlborough, Duke of, 89. Marriage, made a civil contract, 72. Marshfield, 57. Mason, John, claims to Maine and New Hampshire, . 56; complaint laid before magistrates, 61; refuses to sell New Hampsliire rights, 62. Massachusetts, early settlers in, 15 ; important principles in history of, 31; crisis in affairs of, 33; expul sion of Ann Hutchinson from, 36 ; demand for return of charter, 39; adopts "Body of Liberties," 40; joins New England Confederation, 41; early demonstrations of inde pendence, 41, 42 ; proclaims Charles II. king, 50; letter from Charles II. to, 51; wins first strug gle with Crown, 55 ; description of troops, 60; buys right in Maine, 61 ; weakness of colony, 62 ; raising up lo3'alist feeling, 63; opposition to Andres's government in, 70, 71, 73-79; flrst forcible resistance to MERRY the Crown, 80; Increase Mather's efforts to settle land-titles in, 81; Increase Mather returns to, 82 ; absorbs Nova Scotia, Maine, and Plymouth, 82 ; under Governor Bel lomont's rule, 90, 91; share in war with France, 100; subsidence of opposition to Crown, 139; appoints Franklin agent in England, 140, effect of battles of Lexington and Concord on, 153; troops in Revo lutionary war, 160; flnancial diffi culties of, 168; Constitutional Con vention, 168 ; Washington's visit to, in 1789, 174; assumption of debt by Federal government, 175 ; supports John Adams, 180; effect of embargo on shipping, 185, 186 ; Scotch-Irish immigration to, 202; attempted repression of dissent in, 207 ; music in, 212. Massachusetts Bay, immigration to, 20. Massachusetts Bay Company, gov ernment of, 27. Massacres. See Boston Massacre; Indians. Mather, Cotton, connection with witchcraft cases, 85-88; literary work of, 86; character of, 86-88; complains of climate, 109. Mather, Increase, 67; sails to Eng land to present cause of people to James II., 80; character, 80-82; returns to Massachusetts, 82. Maverick, Samuel, 9, 44, 52, 55. "Mayflower," the, 4, Maylem, Jos., 73. Mayoralty, 194, 197. May-pole, at Mount WoUaston, 8. Meeting-house, disputes with Andros about the, 74-77. "Memorial History of Boston," 85, 108, 163 (note). Merry Mount. See Mount Woi^ LASTON. Index. 235 MIDDLESE.K Middlesex, position of families after Revolution, 167. Ministers, provision for, 26, 116 117. Minute-men, enrolment of, 150; ac tion at Lexington and Concord. 151; response to call of duty, 153; raids of, 154; form nucleus of American armj', 157,158. " Mohawks" the "tea-ship Indians," 144. Molasses, duties on, 125. Monetary system, 169. Money, root of quarrel between Eng land and America, 118. Moon, a portenixius eclipse of, 58. Morse, John T., 215. Morton, Thomas, leads revolution at Mount WoUaston, 7; debaucheries of, 7, 8; captured and sent to Eng land, 8; retum and final banish ment of, 8. " Mother Goose," 211. Motley, John Lothrop, 8, 211. Mount WoUaston, Morton's vagaries at, 7, 8 ; settlement at, 7-9. Municipal life, rise of, 20. Napoleon, influence on United States, 183, 184; hatred of Federalists for, 184. Narragansett country, Roger Wil liams escapes to, 35. Narragansett Indians, treaty with, 59; defeated, 60. Naseby, battle of, 22. Nation, seed of development of the, 30. National poUtics, connection of his tory of Boston with, 164. Naumkeag, settlement at, 12. See also Salem. Navigation Act, the, 49, 56, 66, 90, 94, 96, 119-121. Neck, the, 18, 19, 115; fiUing of flats on, 197, 198. NEW YORK Needham, Mr., sexton of South Meeting-house, 75. Negroes, as servants, 108, 109. See also Slaveky. Neponset Rieer, 68. Neioburyport, removal of inhabitantc to Boston, 161. Newcastle, Duke of, 98. New England, the real conquerors of, 10; John Endicott's governorship, 13; power of the church in, 27; land-holdings in, 28, 29; commis sion on settlement of, 49; resump tion of active policy against, 56 ; Increase Mather's pamphlet on, 81; separated from other colonies, 82; new charter secured for, 82; ob servance of Lord's Day in, 115 ; strengthening of attachment to mother countrj', 118, 119; griev ances in, 119, 120; movement to ward union in, 141 ; effect of battles of Lexington and Concord on, 163 ; threatened secession of, 181; marine prosperity of, 183 non-adherence to Jefferson, 185 British attacks on coast, 189, 190 united action among States of, 190; races in, 202; pride of race in, 204. New England, Council for. See Council for New^ Esgland. New England Confederation, 41. New Hampshire, Gorges' and Ma son's claims to, 56; judgment given for Mason, 61; Randolph's re searches in, 61 ; under Governor Bellomont, 90; position of families after Revolution, 167 ; immigration to, 202. New Haven, joins New England Con federation, 41. Nem Jersey, under Governor Bello mont's rule, 90. Newspapers, 106. New York, age compared with Bos- 236 Index. NICHOLS ton, 1; expedition against, 52, 63; Andros's government of, 70; under Bellomont, 90 ; meeting of first American Congress at, i27; ship ment of tea to, 112. Nichols, Colonel, royal commissioner, 52. Nicholson, Captain, 75. Noddle's Island, 9, 190. Non-importation agreement, adopted, 127, 129 ; execution of, 132 ; relax ation of, 139 ; effect on East India Company, 141, 142 ; Gage's procla mation against, 148. Norfolk, position of families after Revolution, 167. Nomdgewock, Father Rasle's settle ment at, 95. Norsemen, traditions of early visits, 3. North, waning power of the, 181. North, Lord, repeals Revenue Act, 138. Norihern Virginia, Company of, 10. Norton, John, mission to London, 50. JVo>'(on, Mrs., deed of meeting-house, 75. Nova Scotia, annexed to Massachu setts, 82. " Old Confederation," the, 173. Old South Meeting-house, disputes over, 74-77; meeting on tea ques tion, 143, 144 ; turned into riding- school, 358. Oliver, Captain, appointed to meet royal commissioners, 52. Oliver, Mr., remonstrates with An dros about meeting-house, 75. Orders in Council, oppression of, 184. Otis, Harrison Gray, represents Bos ton at Hartford Convention, 191; mayoralty of, 196 ; character, 196. Otis, James, opposition to writs of assistance, 122-124 ; pamphlet of sugar duties, 125. Painters' colours, dutv on, 129. Palfrey, Dr. J. G., 20"l, 216, 219. Papacy, hatred of, 74. Paper, duty on, 129. Paper money, 96, 168. Paris, Treaty of, 163, 165. Parker, Theodore, 208. Pa j-*maK, Francis, 100. 211. Parsons family, position in Revolu tionary times, 167. Paxton, Charles, applies for writs of assistance, 121. Pemaquid, Dudley's attempts to re build fort at, 93". Penn, William, 81. Pepperell, Sir William, commands expedition against Louisburg, 100. Pequot massacre, 57. Percy, Lord, reinforces British troops at Lexington, 152; retreats through Charlestown, 153. Periodicals, 106. Peter, Hugh, arrives in Boston, 33; mixes in political and religious dis cussions, 34; executed, 49. Petre, Father, 81. Philadelphia, shipment of tea to, 142; action in regard to tea, 142; Continental Congi'ess at, 149 ; causes leading to Constitutional Convention at, 171; effect of em bargo on seamen, 186. Phillips, John, first maj'or, 195. Phillips, Wendell, 214,215, 219. Phipps, Sir William, appointed gov ernor, 82; career of, 83, 84; re turn to England, and death, 84 ; administration of, 88 ; character, 88-90. Pickering, Timothy, attack on Gov ernor SuUivan, 186. Pickering family, position in Revo lutionary times, 167. Pilgrims, the, voyage of, 4. Piracy, suppression of, 90; how pun ished in New England, 114. Index. 237 PITCAIRN Pitcairn, Major, action at Lexington, 151. Pitt, William, administration of, 100 ; treatment of colonies, 119; fall of, 120 ; honours to, 128 ; attacks Stamp Act, 128; a Massachusetts imitator of, 175. Plays, frowned on, 112, 113. Plymouth, landing of Pilgrims at, 4; scheme of Gorges for, 5; stragglers from, settle Hull, 7; Morton shipped from, 8 ; sufferings of colonists at, 15 ; Roger Williams in, 35 ; joins New England Confederation, 41 ; visit of royal commissioners to, 53 ; annexed to Massachusetts, 82; represented by J. Q. Adams, 216. Plymouth colony, aids Gorges' fol lowers, 6 ; proceedings against Morton at Mount WoUaston, 8. Police Department, 198. Political institutions, development of, 27. PoUtical training, early, 30. Politics, development of thought in, 2i ; prominence of, 164; heat of, 177, 183, 187 ; changes in, 197. Poole, William F., "Memorial His tory of Boston," 85. Poor, measures for care of, under Mayor Quincy, 196. " Poor Richard," 211. Popular government, secret and safety of, 99. Population, increase of, 104, 175, 176, 197, 198, 200; aspects of the, 106, 203; floating, 106,203; reduc tion of, 161, 162, 165. Pormont, Philemon, first schoolmas ter, 31. Port Bill. See Boston Poet Bill. Port Royal, plundered by Sir Wil liam Phipps, 84. PURITANS Pm-ts, closing of, 127; reopening of, 128. Portugal, immigration from, 203. Poverty and suffering, 19. PownaU, Thomas, appointed gov ernor, 100 ; character and rule, 100, 101. Prescott, Colonel, advances on Charlestown, 155; wrath with Gen eral Ward, 156. Prescott, William, represents Boston at Hartford Convention, 191. Prescott, WUliam H., 211. Prescott family, position in Revolu tionary times, 167. Preston, Captain, part in Boston Massacre, 133-136. Privateering, 165. Privy Council, action of, 51; resume active policy against New Eng land, 66. Professions, 210, 212. Progress, 198. Prosperity, 63, 65, 67, 68, 96, 102, 106, 108, 109, 117, 163, 175, 176, 180, 183, 209, 210. Protection, 192, 209. Province House, death of Governor Burnett at, 97 ; the governors' resi dence, 106. Provincial Assembly, protests against cession of castle, 140. Provincial Congress, demanded, 149 ; frftmed, 150. Provincial period, 101. Public opinion, force of, 120. PubUc stock, provisions for, 27. Puritan Pepys, the, 69. Puritans, discipline Morton, 8 ; Wil liam Blackstone's opinion of, 10; causes of discontent in England, 14; rise of party in England, 20; principles of, 21-24, 26, 34, 37, 38, 47, 66, 67, 71, 72, 113, 114, 204- 208, 213, 217-219, 221-224; in creased immigration of, 31; doc- 238 Index: PYM trine as to citizenship, 34-37 ; ascendency and decline, 43; ina bility to distinguish between civil and religious liberty, 47; Charles II. strikes blow at, 51 ; Cromwel- lian spirit among, 58, 61 ; abilities in negotiation, 64; inconsistencies and peculiarities in their govern ment, 66 ; characteristics of, 67, 71, 72, 113, 114, 213, 216-224; alien ated from Andros, 77; comforts indulged in by, 107-109; mingle punishment with edification, 114; infiuence of, 199, 204-208, 213, 216-224. Pym, John, 22, 32. Quakers, persecution of, 45-48. Quebec, Sir William Phipps's expe dition against, 84. Quincy, Josiah, defends Captain Pres ton, 136; opposition to the em bargo, 185; opinion of Hartford Convention, 191 ; elected mayor, 195; character, 195, 196; mayor alty of, 197. Quincy family, patriotism of, 166. Race-pride, 204, 205. Races, admixture of, 201, 202. Railroads, 210. Randolph, Edward, mission to Mas sachusetts, 56 ; begins second attack on the charter, 60 ; describes Mas sachusetts troops, 60 ; action before the magistrates, 61 ; sails for Eng land, 61; enmity to the colony, 62; appointed coUector of customs, 63; returns to Boston, 64; actual head of provisional government, 69. Randolph, Edward, demands keys of meeting-house, 76. Randolph, John, position on the em bargo question, 186 B0YALIST,S Ranters, the, 47. Rasle, Father, enmitj' to English set tlements, 96; death, 95. Ratcliff, Rev. Robert, 76. "Reasons," John Winthrop's, 14. Rebellion, the great, 20, 21. Reforms, 120. Regicides, the, 49, 51. Regulation and Restriction Acts, 146, 148. Religion, development of thought in, 21; power over Puritans, 24, 113; freedom of, 38, 68. ReUgious intolerance, 27, 31, 36-38, 46-48, 66. Religious tests, democracy combined with, 30. Representation, claims for, 66. Resistance, decline of the policy of, 63, 64. Revenue Act, repeal of, 138, 139; at tempts to offset, in regard to tea, 142. Revere, Paul, gives alarm of approach of British troops, 151; favours Fed eral Constitution, 172. Revolution, not inevitable, 119 ; causes leading to, 119, 129; steady steps toward, 130; beginning of the, 135; effects of, 165, 166. Rhode Island, William Blackstone retires to, 10; foundation of col ony, 35 ; visit of royal commission ers to, 53. Richmond, Duke of, interest in New England, 5 Riots, 126, 130. Roads, 108. Rockingham, Marquis of, comes into power in England, 128. Rome, Church of, 22. Rotch, Mr., action iu tea question, 143, 144. Roxbury, Percy's march through, 152. Royalists, emigration of, 161. Index. 239 RULE Rule, Margaret, 87. Ryswick, Peace of, 89. Sabbath. See Lord's Day. St. Botolph's Church, 32. Salem, foundation of, 12 ; John En dicott's headquarters, 13; arrival of the "Arbella" at, 15; suffer ings of colonists at, 15 ; Roger Wil liams in, 35; witchcraft delusion in, 85, 87 ; application for writs of assistance in, 121; meeting of le gislature at, 148 ;y military at, 149 ; removal of inhabitants to Bos ton, 161 ; shipping interests of, 209. Saltonstall, Sir Richard, 13, 14. Sanitary laws, under Mayor Quincy, 195. Savage, Mr., remonstrates with An dros about meeting-house, 75. Scandinavia, immigration from, 203. Schoolmaster, allowance to, 42. Schools. See Education. Scotland, immigration from, 203. Scudder, Horace E., account of Bos ton, 108, 109. Secession, warnings of, 187, 190. ' Selfridge, Thomas, shoots Austin, 182. Separatists, the, 22. Servants, indented, trade in, 7. Seven bishops, the, 80. SewaU, Samuel, diary, 69, 73-76, 107, 114; remonstrates with An dros about meeting-house, 75; opinions of fashion. 111. Sewall, Stephen, chief-justice, 122. Shawmutt, 16. Shays's rebellion, 169-172. Shipbuilding, 45, 67. 107. Ship money, 14. Shipping, prosperity of, 106, 183, 209; injured by Stamp Act, 127; revival of, 165, 188; effects of em bargo on, 185, 186. stoughton Ship-timber, wrangles about, 96. Shirley, WiUiam, appointed gov ernor, 99; rule, 99, 100; returns to England, 100. Short, Mercy, 87. Shrove Tuesday, celebration of, 74. Shute, Col. Samuel, appointed gov ernor, 94; character and rule of, 94-97. Siege, commencement of, 153. Sims, Thomas, fugitive slave, 217. Slavery, 214-218. Smith, Capt. John, explorations of, 3,4. Smuggling, 120, 121. Social customs, 112, 113, 177. Society, state of, in Revolutionary times, 161, 162. South, growing supremacy of the, 181. Spanish Main, Phipps's search for treasure in, 83. Speaker, wrangles about the, 94, 96, 97. Sports, 111, 112. Stamp Act, the, 125-129, 139. Standish, Miles, explorations of, 4; captures Morton, 8. Stark, General, in battle of Bunker HiU, 156. State and Church. See Church AND State. State debts, assumption by Federal government, 175. State House, Constitutional Conven tion in, 171; celebration of Fede ral Constitution, 173 ; reception of General Washington at, 174. State sovereignty, etiquette of, 175. State Street, outbreak of massacre on, 132, 133; celebration of Du mouriez' success on, 178. Story, Joseph, position on embargo question, 188. Stoughton, William, sent as agent to England, 61; character, 63; 240 Index. STRAFFORD at Lady Andros's funeral, 76; ad ministration of, 90, 91. Strafford, Eari of, 14. Streets, 2, 105. Strong, Caleb, elected governor, 180; defeated by Sullivan, 184. Stuart, Gilbert C, 212. Stuart family, Andros's devotion to, 70. Suffolk County, protests against Eng lish tyranny, 149. Suffolk Resolves, the, 149. Sugar, duties on, 125. Sugar Act, 119-121, 125. Sullivan, James, elected governor, 184; attacked by Pickering, 186. Sullivan family, position in Revo lutionary times, 167. Sumner, Charles, 216, 219. Sumner, Increase, elected governor, 180. Sunday. See Lord's Day. Sunderland, Lord, 81. Surriage, Agnes, 109. Swansea, outbreak of King Philip's war at, 58; destruction of King Philip's viUage at, 59. Taverns, closed on Lord's Day, 116. Taxation, provisions for, 28; how levied, 29; for King Philip's war, 61; weight of, 62; Andros's at tempts at, 77; England's attempts at, 183; of coaches, etc., 107; Townshend's scheme for, 124; op position to taxation without repre sentation, 126. Taylor, Madame, Governor Andros lodges with, 75. Tea, duty on, 129, 141; exempted fi-om repeal of Revenue Act, 138, 139; action of East India Company in regard to, 142. Tea-ships, arrival of, 143; attack on, 143, 144. UNDERHILL Thames River, emigration from, 32. Thatcher, Oxenbridge, opposes writs of assistance, 122. Theatres, opposition to. 111, 112; advent of, 177, 211, 212. Tliomson, David, settlement in Bos ton Harbour, 9. Ticonderoga, guns brought to Bos ton from, 168. Toleration, 222. Torbay, WiUiam III. lands at, 81. Tories, emigration of, 161, 166. Town government, 29 ; development and power of, 30 ; form changed to that of city, 193, 194. Town House, 106 ; privileges to Epis copalians in, 69 ; opposition to Episcopalian occupancy of, 72 ; Andros attends service at, 75 ; heai--' ing of writs of assistance cases in, 122-124. Town meeting, government by, 29, 30,65,66, 117; called by Samuel Adams, 129; after Boston Massa cre, 136; dispute with Governor Hutchinson, 140, 141; on tea ques tion, 142. Town officers, 29. Town.shend, Charles, scheme of, 124. Townshend's Bill, 129. Township, rise of the, 28. Trade, revival of, 139. Transcendentalism, 208. Treaty of Ghent, 191. Treaty of Paris, 163, 165. Treaty of Utrecht, 89. Tremont Street, Washington's stay in, 174. Trimontaine, name changed to Bos ton, 17. Trinitarians, 207. Twenty-ninth Regiment, action in Boston Massacie, 133-136. Underhill, Captain, sent to arrest Roger WiUiams, 35. Index. 241 Union, early principles of, 30. Union of colonies, 141, 146. Unitarianism, 177, 207, 208. United States Constitution. See Constitution of United States. Usher, Betty, 69. Usher, John, 75. Utrecht, Treaty of, 89. Valuation, 201. Vane, Sir Henry, Sr., 33. Vane, Henry, arrives in Boston, 33 ; mixes in political and religious discussions, 34 ; supports Ann Hutchinson, 36 ; defeated, 36 ; con ducts pamphlet war with Win throp, 39 ; returns to England, 39 ; executed, 49. Virginia, Captain WoUaston settles in, 7. Virginia, Company of Northern, 10. Voters, qualifications for, 26. Voting, power of, 29. Walford, Thomas, 9. Walpole, Sir Robert, policy toward colonies, 118-120, 131, 138. Wampanoag Indians, 60. Ward, General, advances on Charles town, 154,155; trying situation at Bunker Hill, 156. War of 1812, outbreak of, 188, 189; effect on Boston, 191, 209. Warren, Joseph, leads Suffolk Coun ty meeting, 149. Washington, George, assumes com mand of troops, 157 ; military skill of, 168 ; attack on Boston, 169, 160; occupies the city, 160; visit to Boston, 174; difference with Hancock on etiquette, 175; attitude toward Genet, 179. Water supply, 197. Wealth, 21, 117, 209, 210. winthrop Webster, Daniel, 124, 217. Wellesley, Arthur, 153. Wessagusset. See Weymouth. Western developments, 20. West Indies, provisions for English fleet in, 55; Sir William Phipps's search for treasure in, 83. Weston, Thomas, exploration of har bour by, 4 ; quarrel with Robert Gorges, 6. West Roxbury, Joseph Dudley's death at, 91, 92. Weymoutli, landing of Weston's par ty at, 4; landing of Robert Gorges at, 6 ; settlement at, 9. Whalley, Colonel, escapes to Boston, 49. Wharves, 19, 20, 44, 105. Whigs, come into power in Eng land, 128; in Massachusetts, 168, 214. White, John, founds settlement at Cape Ann, 11 ; influence at Salem, 12. Whittier, J. G., 211. Wild beasts, 44. William and Mary, proclaimed, 80, 81. William III., issues proclamation to the people, 78 ; lands at Tor- bay, 81. Williams, Roger, arrival in Boston, 35 ; case discussed, 37 ; opposes the Quakers, 47. Wilson, John, signs church covenant, 16; removes to Boston, 16; signs church covenant, 25 ; opposes Ann Hutchinson, 36. Winslow, Governor, warns Boston of Indian war, 57. Winslow, John, brings over Wil liam III.'s proclamation, 78. Winthrop, John, signs agreement at Cambridge, 13; elected governor, 14; "Reasons," 14; arrives at Salem, 15 ; signs church covenant, 16 242 Index. witchcraft 15, 16, 25; abandons Charlestown settlement, 16; motives, 22; jour nal of, 26; loses re-election, 32; criticism of his government, 34; opposes Ann Hutchinson, 36; re elected, 36; conducts a pamphlet war with Vane, 39; politic action in regard to the charter, 40 ; death, 42 ; character and influence, 43, 45; reverence for, 91. Witchcraft delusion, the, 84-88. WoUaston, Captain, settlement near YO£K Quincy, 7; leaves for Virginia and trades there, 7. Wolves, 44. "Woman in White," 219. "Wonder-working Proridence," 44. Worcester, battle of, 22. Workhouse, the first, 106. Writs of assistance, 121-124. "Yankee Doodle," 152. York, Duke of, patron of Sir Edmund Andros, 70. HISTORIC TOWNS. Edited by Edward A. Freeman, B.C.L., and Eev. William Hunt. NEW YORK. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Author of " The Winning of the West," etc. "With. Three Maps. Crown 8vo, 250 pages. Mr. Eoosevelt is the master of a vigorous style, and he has a way of putting things wliich will commend his book to many readers. — 5o« Francisco Chronicle. A compact and exceedingly valuable sketch of New York. . . . The feat of compressing so much within so small a compass, in so excellent a manner, is something wonderful —Boston Daily Advertiser. The judgments expressed with regard to leading personages may perhaps excite adverse comment in some quarters, because of the author's rigid impar tiality, but most readers will gladly welcome the opinions given with so much frankness and freedom from malice. — Boston Heacon The author gives a graphic, at times picturesque, and throughout entertain ing account of the little Dutch and British settlement on Manhattan Island. He has skilfnlly outlined the salient points of its history. In this earlier narra tive he has written a brief, comprehensive, selective rSsumS of Knickerbocker Annals, which wiU appeal to a more than local interest. — Commercial Advertiser. For this, his most recent achievement in literature, Mr. Roosevelt deserves much praise To have made a clear story out of the mass of material in print and manuscript, and to have avoided discursive discussions, is to have performed a highly creditable feat. . . . There are three maps and a good index, and the make-up of the book is unexceptionable. — The Critic. Mr. Roosevelt has shown his ability to grasp the difficult suhject given him m all its immensity, and place its salient features in the limited space assigned, while tracing the chain of causes which gradually changed a little .Dutch trading-hamlet into a great city. He writes clearly and forcibly, with intelligent appreciation of the fact that the history of New York deserves to be studied for more than one reason. — Magazine of American History. A book that no citizen of the metropolis who is at all interested in its history will care to go without . . . Mr. Roosevelt has taken pains to say more of the character and customs of the people, and of their general condition, than of the purely political and military events, which are covered fully by other histories He has written, as he always writes, in a straightforward, manly way, giving his opinions of men and measures, when the occasion arises, with freedom and candor. — Epoch. London and New York : LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. HISTORIC TOWNS. EDITED BT E. A, PEEEMAN and the EEV. WILLIAM HUNT. OroTVii 8vo, LONDON. B3- Rev. W. J. Loftie. With 3 Maps- "A thoroughly readable book, . . . i the history of our greatest city," Will long remain the handbook to ( — ATHEN.ffiDM. EXETER. By E. A. Freeman. With 4 Map.s. "The limitations of Mr. Freeman's i chosen; and the oddity of his recondite method do not affect the goodness of knowledge only adds a pleasant flavour his work within the lines which he has 1 to his pages." — Satubdat Review. BRISTOL. By Rev. W. Hunt. With 4 Maps. series of books, and what might in lees skilful hands have been ajejune chron icle becomes a fresh and engaging narrative." — Scoisman. " Mr Hunt's chapters are written with the accuracy and from the re search of a scholar ; at the same time he is careful never to lose sight of tbe popular character aimed at by this OXFORD. By Rev. C. W. Boase, With 2 Maps. "A most careful, interesting, and I would do well to purchase." — OxPOBD trustworthy book, which every Oxford RevJew. man and every Commemoration visitor | COLCHESTER. By Rev. E. L. Cutts. With 4 Maps. " To the archaeologist Colchester is, for various reasons, a place of excep tional importance. . . . Mr. Cdtts has made excellent use of the materials at his command, and the result is a valu able survey of the life and character of the town through the various phases of its career." — Mornikg Post. CINQUE PORTS. By Montagu Bukrows. With 4 Maps. "There is not a dull page in this L reader will not be able to gain fresh in- little book. We may almost add that | sight into the history of a most inter- there is not a page from which the ! esting past.' ' — Academy. CARLISLE. By the Rev. Mandell Creighton. With 2 Maps. " ' Carlisle ' makes the best book of the series for romantic incident, and we may mention by the way that Mr. CREifeHTON's description of the Roman WINCHESTER. By G. W. Kitchin, D.D., Dean of Winchester. YORK. By the Rev. James Raine, D.C.L., Prebendary of York. With Maps and Plans. [In the Press.'\ NEW YORK. By Theodore Roosevelt. With 3 Maps. BOSTON (Massackusfitis). By Henry Cabot Lodge. With Maps. wall is .the simplest and clearest we have ever read.'* — Journal of Educa tion. London and New York: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 3 9002 ^ ^ »i»r-*^ VJ ^fif,^ rJtm.i'; t - * I Ti'f'. ?;, I ' i^'^ #^". •