The commissioners reached Boston, en route for New Amsterdam, late in July, 1664, asked for troops, and demanded the repeal of the franchise law. The magistrates took the precaution to conceal the charter; they were also heartily glad when the commissioners departed on their errand of conquest and hoped they would not return. The general court, having modified the franchise law sufficiently to meet the letter of the King's command, wrote His Majesty that they wished he would recall his emissaries; and when the magistrates discovered that this impertinent demand not only failed of its object but drew down upon the colony a royal rebuke, with characteristic shrewdness they shifted their ground and prepared to meet the commissioners in fair contest, wearing out their patience and thwarting their plans by every available device. In the meantime, the four men were completing the conquest and pacification of New Netherland, and rearranging the boundary difficulties with Connecticut. Then Maverick and Cartwright passed on to Boston, where they were joined in February by Carr, Nicolls remaining in New York. The three men, making Boston their headquarters, visited Plymouth, Newport, and Hartford, where they were received, according to their account, "with great expressions of loyalty"—a statement which, if true, shows how successfully the colonists suppressed their deeper feelings. Having taken the King's Province under the royal protection, and postponed for later consideration the question of the boundary line between Rhode Island and Connecticut, with new complaints against Massachusetts ringing in their ears, they returned to Boston to meet the defiant magistrates. There Nicolls joined them in May.
The Massachusetts mission was hopeless from the beginning. The magistrates and general court would not admit the right of the commissioners to interfere in any way with governmental procedure or with the course of justice; and standing with absolute firmness on the powers granted by the charter and pointing to the recent renewal by the King as a full confirmation of all their privileges, they denied the validity of the royal mission and refused to discuss the question of jurisdiction. The commissioners said very plainly that Massachusetts had not administered the oath of allegiance or permitted the use of the Book of Common Prayer, as she had promised to do, and, as for the new franchise law, they did not understand it themselves and did not believe it would meet the royal requirements. To none of these points did the magistrates make any sufficient reply, but, feeling convinced that safety lay in avoiding decisions, they preferred rather to leave the matter ambiguous than to attempt any clearing up of the points at issue.
But when the commissioners took up the question of appeals and announced their determination to sit as a court of justice, the issue was more fairly joined. The magistrates quoted the text of the charter to show that the colony had full power over all judicial affairs, while the commissioners cited their instructions as a sufficient warrant for their right to hear complaints against the colony. A deadlock ensued, but in the end the colony triumphed. After spending a month in fruitless negotiations, the commissioners gave up the struggle, preferring to leave the conduct of Massachusetts to be passed upon by the Crown rather than to prolong the controversy. For the time being, the Massachusetts men had their own way; but they had raised a serious and dangerous question, that of their allegiance and its obligations, for, as the commissioners said, "The King did not grant away his soveraigntie over you when he made you a corporation. When His Majestie gave you power to make wholesome lawes and to administer justice, he parted not with his right of judging whether those laws are wholsom, or whether justice was administered accordingly or no. When His Majestie gave you authoritie over such of his subjects as lived within the limits of your jurisdiction, he made them not your subjects nor you their supream authority." Had the magistrates been wiser men, less homebred and provincial, and possessed of wider vision, they would have foreseen the dangers that confronted them. But Bellingham and Leverett, the leading representatives of the policy of no surrender, were not men gifted with foresight, and they remained unmoved by the last threat of the commissioners that it would be hazardous to deny the King's supremacy, for "'tis possible that the charter which you so much idolize may be forfeited."
The magistrates were undoubtedly influenced by the character of the commissioners and their rough and ready methods of procedure. Had all been as honorable and upright as Nicolls, who unfortunately took but little part in the negotiations, the outcome might have been different. But there is reason to think otherwise. The Massachusetts leaders took the ground that if they yielded any part they must eventually yield all, and they wanted no interference from outside in their government. Having ruled themselves for thirty years as they thought best, they were not disposed to admit that the King had any rights in the colony; and they believed that by steady resistance or by dilatory practices they could stave off intervention and that, with the danger once removed, the colony would be allowed to continue in its own course. In a measure they were justified in their belief. The King recalled the commissioners, and, though he wrote a letter declaring that Massachusetts had shown a great want of duty and respect for the royal authority, he went no further than to command the colony to send agents to England to answer there the questions that had not been settled during the stay of the commissioners at Boston. But the colony did not take this command seriously and sent no agents. Nicolls, always temperate in speech, wrote in 1666: "The grandees of Boston are too proud to be dealt with, saying that His Majesty is well satisfied with their loyalty."
The "grandees" were playing a shrewd but none too wise a game. Affairs in England were not favorable to the pursuit of a rigorous policy at this time. The Dutch war, the fire and epidemic in London, and the consequent suspension of all outside activities, had thrown governmental business into disorder and confusion. Clarendon, whose influence was waning, was soon to lose his post as Chancellor. The negotiations which ended in the treaty of Breda, and the threatening policy of Louis XIV, now beginning to take a form ominous to the Protestant states of Europe, distracted men's minds at home, and the Massachusetts problem was for the moment lost sight of in the presence of the larger issues. The colony returned to its former position of independence and soon reasserted its former authority over New Hampshire and Maine. To all appearances the failure of the royal commissioners was complete, but appearances were deceptive. The issue lay not merely between a Stuart King and a colony seeking to preserve its liberties; it was part of the larger and more fundamental issue of the place of a colony in England's newly developed policy of colonial subordination and control. Neither was Massachusetts a persecuted democracy. No modern democratic state would ever vest such powers in the hands of its magistrates and clergy, nor would any modern people accept such oppressive and unjust legislation as characterized these early New England communities. In any case, the contemptuous attitude of Massachusetts and her disregard of the royal commands were not forgotten; and when, a few years later, the authorities in England took up in earnest the enforcement of the new colonial policy as defined by acts of Parliament and royal orders and proclamations, the colony of Massachusetts Bay was the first to feel the weight of the royal displeasure.
CHAPTER VIII
WARS WITH THE INDIANS
The period from 1660 to 1675, a time of readjustment in the affairs of the New England colonies, was characterized by widespread excitement and deep concern on the part of the colonies everywhere. Scarcely a section of the territory from Maine to the frontier of New York and the towns of Long Island but felt the strain of impending change in its political status. The winning of the charters and the capture of New Amsterdam were momentous events in the lives of the colonists of Rhode Island and Connecticut; while the agitation for the annexation of New Haven and the acrimonious debate that accompanied it must have stirred profoundly the towns of that colony and have led to local controversies, rivalries, and contentions that kept the inhabitants in a continual state of perturbation. On Long Island before 1664, the uncertainty as to jurisdiction, due to grave doubts as to the meaning of Connecticut's charter, aroused the towns from Easthampton and Southold on the east to Flushing and Gravesend on the west, and divided the people into discordant and clashing groups. Captain John Scott, already mentioned, an adventurer and soldier of fortune who at one time or another seems to have made trouble in nearly every part of the British world, appeared at this time in Long Island and, denying Connecticut's title to the territory, proclaimed the King. In January, 1664, he established a government at Setauket, with himself as president. This event set the towns in an uproar; Captain Young from Southold, upholding Connecticut's claim, came "with a trumpet" to Hempstead; New Haven men crossed Long Island Sound to support Scott's cause; and at last Connecticut herself sent over officers to seize the insurgents. Though Scott said he would "sacrifice his heart's blood upon the ground" before he would yield, he was taken and carried in chains to Hartford.