[1082]. Ibid., pp. 77 f.; Randolph Papers, vol. IV, p. 277; N. Y. Col. Docts., vol. III, p. 581.
[1083]. Andros Tracts, vols. I, p. 78, and II, p. 209; Randolph Papers, vol. V, p. 57.
[1084]. Cited by Hutchinson, History, vol. I, pp. 332 f.
[1085]. For the events of the revolution, vide, Andros Tracts, vols. I, pp. 3 ff., II, pp. 191 ff., and III, pp. 22 ff., 145 ff.; Hutchinson, History, vol. I, pp. 334 f.; Randolph Papers, vol. IV, pp. 264 ff.; Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92, pp. 33, 66 ff., 92 ff.
[1086]. Given in Andros Tracts, vol. I, pp. 11 ff.
[1087]. Andros Tracts, vols. I, p. 20, and III, p. 145 n.; Osgood, American Colonies, vol. III, p. 419.
CHAPTER XVII
THE NEW ORDER
Just a year before the events of that 18th of April, described at the close of the last chapter, the Reverend Increase Mather had sailed for England as representative of “many congregations” in the colony, in an effort to secure from King James the restoration of an assembly, confirmation of land-titles, and as many of the old charter privileges as possible. Although he was more than once received in audience by the King, before the Revolution brought the negotiations to an abrupt end, it had been evident for some time that the churches' agent was likely to gain little more than fair words and memories of royal interviews.[[1088]] He had, however, succeeded in making useful friends, one among whom, Sir Henry Ashurst, became associated with him as agent, and another, Lord Wharton, introduced him to the Prince of Orange a month before the coronation, enabling him thus early to present a petition for the restoration of the charter.[[1089]]
Three days after that interview, a circular letter was prepared, to be sent to all the English colonies, ordering officials then in office to continue to administer affairs temporarily until the new government could send different instructions.[[1090]] Word of this was given to Mather by Jephson, a cousin of Wharton and an under-secretary to the King. Mather's alarm, when he heard of it, would seem to indicate that he either had definite information of the uprising planned in Boston, or very strong suspicions of what might occur. Prince William had already been two months in England, and it is incredible that Mather should not have sent home some word of an event of such overwhelming importance to the colony as the overthrow of the Stuart monarchy. His later censure of the colonists for not having promptly resumed the charter government, instead of temporizing, and his laying the blame for his partial failure in England upon their not having done so, may also suggest the nature of the advice sent by him.[[1091]] He could hardly have expected the new King to determine offhand the form of government for the Dominion of New England, then constituting over one half of the empire in America. An order for a few months' longer continuance of the Andros government, under the circumstances, would not have been a serious matter, unless that government had already been overthrown, or was about to be, by the colonists' acts. However that may be, Mather and Sir William Phips, now also temporarily in London, petitioned against the dispatch of the letter to New England, and succeeded in having orders issued instead for a new governor in place of Andros, and a temporary form of government, to include a popular assembly.[[1092]]
News of the revolution at Boston reached London the last week in June, and soon letters from Randolph and others supplied the English government with the details of what had occurred.[[1093]] Toward the end of July, orders were issued to the provisional government in Boston to send Andros and the other prisoners to England “forthwith,” on the first ship bound thither, and that they be treated civilly.[[1094]] The order was not received in Massachusetts until November 24, and then was not complied with.[[1095]] Although two ships were ready to sail in December, an embargo was laid upon the vessels, and it was not until the middle of the next February that the prisoners, after treatment which they considered unnecessarily harsh, were allowed to start.[[1096]] It had probably been felt that their presence in London might interfere with the success of the colony's agents.