Andros had already made one trip to the eastward, in the spring of 1688, for the purpose of restoring the fort at Pemaquid; and while there, had despoiled the home of St. Castine, an intruding French trader, who was living a half-savage life with an assorted selection of Indian wives, more notable for number than for virtue.[[1075]] The Governor called together the sachems of the local tribes, endeavored to bind them to the English cause, and then had to proceed to New York. While he was detained there, several minor Indian attacks occurred at New Haven, up the Connecticut River, and in Maine, resulting in the killing, in all, of some twenty-six whites.[[1076]] After a proclamation ordering the Indians to restore their prisoners and surrender the murderers had proved unavailing, Andros organized an expedition of several hundred men, and himself marched with them into Maine, destroying many of the Indian settlements, and capturing much of their ammunition and supplies.[[1077]] Randolph claims, however, what is confirmed by other documents, that Boston merchants sent the enemy a vessel of forty-two tons loaded with powder, shot, and food, and so undid much of Andros's work.[[1078]]
The Indian troubles were made the basis for the spreading of alarming rumors that Andros was intending to turn the colonies over to France, and introduce popery, and even that the Mohawks were to be called in to destroy Boston. All sorts of trumpery evidence was adduced to lend color to these unfounded libels, to which even Increase Mather did not hesitate to lend his influence.[[1079]] While they were utterly without foundation so far as Andros was concerned, who treated them with deserved contempt, they fitted in with both the religious and political fears of Protestant Englishmen in the closing years of the Stuarts. Moreover, recently published letters of Randolph now show that he, at least, had begun to trim his sails to meet a possible breeze from Rome, should James make England a Catholic country; and his suggestion as to the superior usefulness of Jesuits, as instruments among the Indians, and even of the possibility of establishing a monastery, may have been noised abroad.[[1080]] As we have already noted, the mentality of the Massachusetts of this period was peculiarly liable to panic and fantastic fears; and whether or not the leaders believed the fables they spread, they undoubtedly realized that the readiest way to organize a revolution against Andros would be by religious prejudice.
It is probable that the fundamental weakness of the King's policy would have borne its natural fruit, even had there been no Revolution in England; but that event was to offer the most favorable opportunity for the minor movement in the colony. Andros was still at Pemaquid when he received what was probably his first intimation of the coming attempt to overthrow the government in England, in the form of a proclamation, which the King ordered to be published, calling upon all subjects to show their loyalty in view of a threatened invasion from Holland.[[1081]] By the end of March, 1689, the Governor was back in Boston, and, ten days later, young John Winslow arrived from the island of Nevis, with news of Prince William's landing in England and a copy of his declaration.[[1082]] Rumors had also reached Andros, who requested Winslow to show him the declaration as confirmation. On Winslow's refusal, Andros told him he was “a saucy fellow,” and had him committed to jail for overnight, releasing him in the morning, when he showed the paper to the magistrate.[[1083]]
Andros's position was a difficult one. Although not in sympathy with much both in the religious position and in the absolutist tendencies of his Stuart masters, he had to the full the soldierly qualities of obedience and loyalty, and on the 16th of April, he wrote to Brockholls in New York that there was “a general buzzing among the people,” and warned the magistrates and officers to be on their guard against probable trouble.[[1084]]
Two days after, on the 18th, the storm broke in Boston. There is evidence to indicate that the leaders had laid their plans some time in advance, and that the staging of the events followed a preconcerted arrangement, in spite of their feigned ignorance.[[1085]] Early in the morning, armed crowds of men and boys proceeded to the centre of the town from either end, captured Randolph, several of the justices, the sheriff, a number of the captains, and others of the government, and locked them in the jail. Andros had already taken refuge in the fort, while Dudley was absent on Long Island. Bradstreet, Danforth, and others of the popular leaders were escorted to the Town-house, and at noon a lengthy, and certainly not hastily prepared, declaration was read to the assembled people from a balcony.[[1086]] It was an able, but exceedingly biased, indictment of the Andros government, while the art of the demagogue was evident in the weaving in of old slanders as to the Governor's pretended treachery with the French and Indians, the raking up of the Popish Plot in England, and a passing tribute to the “Scarlet Whore.” It ended with flattering references to the Prince of Orange, and the statement that the persons of “those few Ill men,” who had been the authors of the colony's misery, had been seized lest they should have given the province “away to a Forreign Power,” before orders might be received from the new Parliament. The wording would indicate that it had been expected that Andros, and perhaps Dudley, who, with Randolph, were certainly the chief of the “ill men” in popular estimation, would already have been in custody by the time it was read. Andros's having taken refuge in the fort probably upset the plans in that respect. The paper contains every internal evidence, indeed, of having been prepared some time before, and certainly not after, the mob had begun its work on that eventful morning. Nevertheless, Winthrop, Bradstreet, Stoughton, Danforth, and others of the leaders immediately drew up another, stating that the action of the people was a surprise, of “the first motion whereof” they had been entirely ignorant, and calling upon Andros to surrender the government, and deliver up the fort, which otherwise would be carried by storm.[[1087]]
To have held the little fort, or the defenses on Castle Island, for any length of time, in the face of overwhelming odds, would have been impossible. To have defended the fort temporarily against attack would merely have caused useless bloodshed; and, fortunately for the colonists, Andros, throughout his whole career, had never shown the bloodthirsty vindictiveness of an Endicott or a Norton. That he was no coward is shown by the fact that he abandoned the shelter of the fort, and made his way through the tumultuous streets to a personal conference with the revolutionary leaders gathered in the council chamber. The meeting, however, effected no compromise; Andros was made prisoner, and, through one of his subordinates, but apparently on his orders, the fort was surrendered. The following day, the Castle also was yielded, and possession taken of the frigate, though the latter, in order to save the men's pay, was not required to be formally surrendered. Some days later, Dudley was located in the Narragansett country, brought to Boston, and placed in the common jail. In Europe, James II had dropped the Great Seal of England in the Thames, and fled to France. In America, his Dominion of New England lay shattered.
Demand for Surrender of Sir Edmond Andros
Broadside in Massachusetts Archives, State House, Boston
[991]. The story of the Masonian Proprietors is given by O. G. Hammond, The Mason Title and its relations to New Hampshire and Massachusetts; American Antiquarian Society, 1916.