It is, perhaps, only fair to say that the English government may not have realized the full extent of the popular feeling, and that they probably thought that the sum asked, which was less than a third of a penny per acre, would be willingly paid as a means of permanently validating the imperfect titles. All those residents of Boston interested in the Narragansett country had voluntarily offered, a year previously, to pay such a quit-rent as the amount asked later, and the government of Massachusetts itself had collected quit-rents from its own citizens in Maine.[[1051]] The policy of questioning all titles constituted a typical example of Stuart injustice and ineptitude; and the few test cases which Andros brought were handled in a way to afford the greatest degree of apprehension and irritation. The needy and ill-paid minor officials, upon whom he had to depend in large part for the details of his administration, immediately scented plunder, and sought recklessly to profit by it. Although the actual number of cases in which titles were attacked individually was very small, the theory on which the cases were based threatened virtually every individual outside of Connecticut; and it is hard to conceive of any other blunder that the government could have made which would, so instantly, have arrayed an entire population in opposition. It is unnecessary to go into the details of the cases, for there is but one answer to the question, “What people that had the spirits of Englishmen could endure this?”[[1052]]
Cranfield, who had had hopes of getting the governorship of Massachusetts for himself, had predicted that all might go well there, “provided that Religion and Tertenancy doe not hinder”; and, at least, had thus shown himself capable of picking out two of the probable rocks on which the Dominion policy might founder.[[1053]] The fact that the new government was pledged to allow liberty of conscience to all persons would, in itself, have been sufficiently obnoxious to the clergy and old church party, even had not the clause been added that the Church of England was to be especially encouraged.[[1054]] Andros had been preceded in his arrival by the Reverend Mr. Ratcliffe, a minister of that church, and “extraordinary good preacher,”[[1055]] and Randolph and Mason had petitioned for the use of one of the three Boston meeting-houses in which to hold services. This, quite naturally, had been refused, and the services were being held in the Town-house when the new Governor reached Boston. Andros repeated the request, and was again refused, the Town-house continuing to be used until the following March, when the Governor once more reopened the question. Having no better success than before, he obtained the key of the South Meeting-house from the sexton, and forced the issue.[[1056]] From that time forward, the two congregations held services there on Sunday mornings, the one following the other. The sermons of the Puritan divines were of such inordinate length that even the late Dudley government, though firm in the faith and New England bred, had to pass a resolution that “the minister that preaches on Thursday next be prayed from this Court to hasten his Sermon because of the short days”;[[1057]] and one Sabbath morning was scarcely long enough for two clergymen. Moreover, the wholly warranted sense of injustice felt by the Congregationalists would not tend toward easing a situation which, in the best of cases, would have been likely to breed constant ill-feeling. Ecclesiastical quarrels are never lacking in venom, and the intensity of the friction developed in the present case was naturally intense. Within the year, however, the Episcopalians made an effort to build a church of their own, though not without difficulty, for Sewall, who was one of those who complained of their using the Meeting-house, refused to sell them land upon which “to set up that which the People of N. E. came over to avoid.”[[1058]] But a new church was at last built, although Andros never worshiped in the King's Chapel, as it was called, the Revolution occurring before its completion. His religious sincerity is witnessed by the fact that, when he sailed for England, virtually a prisoner, he left £30 as a gift toward the building.[[1059]]
Arbitrary and unnecessarily irritating as was the Governor's course in the matter, it must be confessed to have been a very mild form of religious tyranny, as compared with that customarily indulged in by the Puritans themselves. But in various minor ways he gave additional offense to the clergy and more bigoted laymen, whose Puritanism had at this time reached its narrowest point. On Christmas Day, the observance of which was punishable by fine under the colony's laws, Sewall sadly observes that the “governor goes to the Town-House to Service Forenoon and Afternoon”; though he takes some heart by noting that “shops open today generally and persons about their occasions.”[[1060]] A little later, Increase Mather writes in his diary, that “this Sabbath [Saturday] night was greatly profaned by bonfires &c. under pretence of honor to the King's Coronation.” A sort of secondary Sabbath had been developed by the clergy about the mid-week “lecture,” and on one of these days, Mather notes that “Sword playing was this day openly practised on a Stage in Boston & that immediately after the Lecture, so the Devil has begun a Lecture in Boston on a Lecture day which was set up for Christ.”[[1061]] Happily, the old order was changing, and the community was gradually loosening the shackles of what, for most, had become merely a dreary formalism.
In an earlier chapter, we attempted to show what a change was wrought in the attitude of the Puritans when they passed from opposition to the government in England to the control of that in the colony. Under Andros, they now once more found themselves in opposition; and it is instructive to note in how many particulars they again proclaimed as tyranny what they had themselves been practising. We have seen how laws had been passed prohibiting anyone from settling in the colony, or leaving it without the consent of the rulers. These laws had never been repealed by the colonial authorities, but it was now complained that “whereas by constant usage any person might remove out of the countrey at his pleasure, a Law was made that no man should do so without the Governours leave.” In view of the continuous refusal of the Puritan government, when in power, to permit any dissatisfied citizen to go to England to lodge complaint against their arbitrary acts, of which refusal many examples have been cited, the complaints against Andros in the matter are an amusing instance of immediate change of feeling upon discovering whose ox was being gored. There is nothing to indicate that Andros had any intention of preventing anyone from carrying an appeal; but the same writer who complained of the above act goes on to say, with an entire lack of humor, considering the past history of the colony, “how should any dissatisfied persons ever obtain liberty to go to England to complain of their being oppressed by Arbitrary Governours?”[[1062]] As a matter of fact, dissatisfied persons now possessed that liberty for the first time in the history of Massachusetts.
Under the former régime, the right to organize churches, the regulation of the schools, and the licensing of printing, had all been kept rigidly under the control of the government, which meant the representatives of the minority of the population constituting the Congregational church. But a loud cry of tyranny was raised when the new government passed an act that no schools should be kept except “such as shall be allowed,” and established Dudley as censor of the press, which Hutchinson admits merely changed its keeper.[[1063]]
The order that all records of the former governments should be lodged at Boston undoubtedly entailed hardship for anyone who wished to examine them; and the requirement that final action in the probating of wills or granting letters of administration, in estates of the value of over £50, must take place in Boston was also an unpractical attempt at bureaucratic centralization.[[1064]] Moreover, West, to whom Randolph had farmed out the office of Secretary, was a peculating subordinate, of whom Randolph later wrote that he “extorts what fees he pleases, to the great oppression of the people, and renders the present government grievous.”[[1065]] The legal fees, as enacted in 1687, were fair and moderate,—that for the probate of a will, for example, being ten shillings,—and there is only questionable evidence for Hutchinson's statement, inaccurate in another respect, that the usual charge was fifty shillings.[[1066]] But there is some evidence that West and some of the minor officials attempted extortion even after the establishment of an official scale; and Randolph complained that two of them, West being one, were insubordinate in Maine, where they “were as arbitrary as the great Turke,” and were upsetting matters already settled by Andros.[[1067]] How far Andros might have been able to organize the enormous and administratively unwieldy dominion, and rid himself of unreliable subordinates, had he been given time, cannot be known, as he was to have only a few months in which to do so after the addition of the southern provinces.
Aside from these and other difficulties, his administration would undoubtedly have been wrecked on the question of taxation, whether the Revolution had occurred in England or not. He himself, and every one else apparently, except the King, realized the necessity for an elected assembly; but it had been denied, and there was, therefore, nothing to do but to levy the taxes without the direct consent of the people. Under his commission, Andros, “by and with the advice and consent” of a majority of his Council, had been given power to levy such taxes as might be necessary for the support of the government;[[1068]] and at the session of March 1, 1687, a general bill, embodying some former ones, was presented for consideration. It aroused warm discussion over details, and both the records, and the long subsequent complaint of Stoughton and others that Andros had “held the Council together unreasonably a very long time about it,” would indicate that on that day, at least, there had been no suppression of freedom of debate.[[1069]] After a second reading, and a lapse of two days, it was passed on the third day, nemine contradicente, according to the records, though the complainants, several years later, claimed that the vote had not been counted, and that many of the councilors had remained silent, under “great discouragement and discountenance.”[[1070]]
The attempt to levy the tax met with immediate resistance in Essex County, and particularly in the town of Ipswich, where the men assembled in town-meeting refused to elect an assessor. Under the leadership of John Wise, certain of the inhabitants drew up a protest, stating that their liberties as Englishmen had been infringed, and refusing to pay any taxes not levied by an elected assembly.[[1071]] Twenty-eight were at once arrested, of whom a number, “appearing more ingenuous and less culpable,” were promptly released.[[1072]] Six, however, supposed to be the ringleaders, were thrown into prison at Boston, a writ of habeas corpus having been denied.[[1073]] When they were later brought to trial, Dudley was the presiding judge, and Wise claimed that the jury was packed for the occasion. The six were fined, in all, £185, and forced to pay heavy charges in court fees, while Wise was suspended from his ministerial functions. The fines were large, but the offense naturally was serious in the eyes of Andros, who had, perforce, to carry out a policy not of his own making; and it may not be unfair to recall that, in the days when the “saddle was upon the Bay mare,” the Puritans had levied fines of £750 upon Dr. Child and his fewer associates.
Although the towns, as has been stated, had never had legal standing as corporations, and, with the overthrow of the charter, had ceased to have a political one, the new government had, nevertheless, allowed them to continue functioning much as usual. As a result of the attitude of those in Essex on the tax-matter, however, the Council passed a law limiting town-meetings to one a year for the purpose of electing local officers, and thus struck at the very root of popular government in the colony.[[1074]]
The addition of one colony after another, in rapid succession, to the province for which Andros was responsible, raised administrative problems of the gravest sort, and had necessitated journeys from Boston to Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York. When the last-named had been placed under his rule, in 1688, he had also been given the main control over Indian affairs for nearly all English North America, and had also had to journey to Albany for a conference with the Mohawks. With wholly inadequate assistance from the greedy office-seekers, who in large part formed his staff, his position was certainly an unenviable one. It was not long before the Indian question on the eastern frontier, with the larger danger of the French lurking in the background, also arose, to add to the difficulties of the harassed Governor. It was, unquestionably, a wise policy to unite the Indian affairs of all the colonies under one head; for the French in the valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi now threatened the entire rear of the English empire on the continent, and in the impending struggle between the two, the allegiance of the Indian tribes dwelling between them would become a factor of supreme importance. The disunited English colonies, quarreling among themselves, and wholly selfish in the various policies pursued by them in relation to the natives, offered a contrast, palpable enough to the savages, to the unified control of the French.