At the time of the return of Andros to England, in 1682, the assembly decreed free trade, and Dongan, the new Roman Catholic governor, permitted them to enact a liberal charter. In the midst of the happiness consequent upon this, the Duke became king and lost no time in breaking every contract that he had, in his unanointed state, entered into. Taxes arbitrarily levied, titles vacated in order to obtain renewal fees, and all the familiar machinery of official robbery were put in operation. But Dongan, a kindly Kildare Irishman—he was afterward Earl of Limerick—would not make oppression bitter; and the New Yorkers were not so punctilious about abstract principles as were the New England men. Favorable treaties were made with the Indians; and the despot's heel was not shod with iron, nor was it stamped down too hard. The Dongan charter, as it was called, remained in the colony's possession for over forty years. The rule of Dongan himself continued till 1688.
Andros, after an absence from the colonies of five years, during which time a native but unworthy New Englander, Joseph Dudley, had acted as president, came back to his prey with freshened appetite in 1686. He was royal governor of all New England. Randolph, an active subordinate under Dudley, had already destroyed the freedom of the press. Andros's power was practically absolute; he was to sustain his authority by force, elect his own creatures to office, make such laws as pleased him, and introduce episcopacy. He forbade any one to leave the colony without leave from himself; he seized a meeting house and made it into an Episcopal church, in spite of the protests of the Puritans, and the bell was rung for high-church service in spite of the recalcitrant Needham. Duties were increased; a tax of a penny in the pound and a poll tax of twenty pence were levied; and those who refused payment were told that they had no privilege, except "not to be sold as slaves." Magna Charta was no protection against the abolition of the right of Habeas Corpus: "Do not think the laws of England follow you to the ends of the earth!" Juries were packed, and Dudley, to avoid all mistakes, told them what verdicts to render. Randolph issued new grants for properties, and extorted grievous fees, declaring all deeds under the charter void, and those from Indians, or "from Adam," worthless. West, the secretary, increased probate duties twenty-fold. When Danforth complained that the condition of the colonists was little short of slavery, and Increase Mather added that no man could call anything his own, they got for answer that "it is not for his majesty's interest that you should thrive." In the history of Massachusetts, there is no darker day than this.
The great New England romancer, writing of this period a hundred and seventy years later, draws a vivid and memorable picture of the people and their oppressors. "The roll of the drum," he says, "had been approaching through Cornhill, louder and deeper, till with reverberations from house to house, and the regular tramp of martial footsteps, it burst into the street. A double rank of soldiers made their appearance, occupying the whole breadth of the passage, with shouldered matchlocks, and matches burning, so as to present a row of fires in the dusk. Their steady march was like the progress of a machine, that would roll irresistibly over everything in its way. Next, moving slowly, with a confused clatter of hoofs on the pavement, rode a party of mounted gentlemen, the central figure being Sir Edmund Andros, elderly, but erect and soldier-like. Those around him were his favorite councilors, and the bitterest foes of New England. At his right rode Edward Randolph, our arch-enemy, that 'blasted wretch,' as Mather calls him, who achieved the downfall of our ancient government, and was followed with a sensible curse, through life and to his grave. On the other side was Bullivant, scattering jests and mockery as he rode along. Dudley came behind, with a downcast look, dreading, as well he might, to meet the indignant gaze of the people, who beheld him, their only countryman by birth, among the oppressors of his native land. The captain of a frigate in the harbor, and two or three civil officers under the Crown, were also there. But the figure that most attracted the public eye, and stirred up the deepest feeling, was the Episcopal clergyman of King's Chapel, riding haughtily among the magistrates in his priestly vestments, the fitting representative of prelacy and persecution, the union of church and state, and all those abominations which had driven the Puritans to the wilderness. Another guard of soldiers, in double rank, brought up the rear. The whole scene was a picture of the condition of New England, and its moral, the deformity of any government that does not grow out of the nature of things and the character of the people. On one side the religious multitude, with their sad visages and dark attire, and, on the other, the group of despotic rulers, with the high churchman in the midst, and here and there a crucifix at their bosoms, all magnificently clad, flushed with wine, proud of unjust authority, and scoffing at the universal groan. And the mercenary soldiers, waiting but the word to deluge the street with blood, showed the only means by which obedience could be secured."
Education was temporarily paralyzed, and the right of franchise was rendered nugatory by the order that oaths must be taken with the hand on the Bible—a "popish" ceremony which the Puritans would not undergo. The town meetings, which were the essence of New Englandism, were forbidden except for the election of local officers, and ballot voting was stopped: "There is no such thing as a town in the whole country," Andros declared. Verily, it was "a time when New England groaned under the actual pressure of heavier wrongs than those threatened ones which brought on the Revolution." Yet the spirit of the people was not crushed; their leaders did not desert them; in private meetings they kept their faith and hope alive; the ministers told them that "God would yet be exalted among the heathen"; and one at least among them, Willard, significantly bade them take note that they "had not yet resisted unto blood, warring against sin!"
Boston was Andros's headquarters, and in 1688 was made the capital of the whole region along the coast from the French possessions in the north to Maryland in the south. But Andros had not yet received the submission of Rhode Island and Connecticut. Walter Clarke was the governor of the former colony in 1687, when, in the dead of winter, Andros appeared there and ordered the charter to be given up. Roger Williams had died three years before. Clarke tried to temporize, and asked that the surrender be postponed till a fitter season. But Andros dissolved the government summarily, and broke its seal; and it is not on record that the Rhode Islanders offered any visible resistance to the outrage. From Rhode Island Andros, with his retinue and soldiers, proceeded to Hartford, which had lost its Winthrop longer ago than the former its Williams. Governor Dongan of New York had warned Connecticut of what was to come, and had counseled them to submit. Three writs of quo warranto were issued, one upon another, and the colony finally petitioned the king to be permitted to retain its liberties; but in any case to be merged rather in Massachusetts than in New York. It was on the last day of October, 1687; Andros entered the assembly hall, where the assembly was then in session, with Governor Treat presiding. The scene which followed has entered into the domain of legend; but there is nothing miraculous in it; a deed which depended for its success upon the secrecy with which it was accomplished would naturally be lacking in documentary confirmation. Upon Andros's entrance, hungry for the charter, Treat opposed him, and entered upon a defense of the right of the colony to retain the ancient and honorable document, hallowed as it was by associations which endeared it to its possessors, aside from its political value. Andros, of course, would not yield; the only thing that such men ever yield to is superior force; but force being on his side, he entertained no thought of departing from his purpose. The dispute was maintained until so late in the afternoon that candles must be lighted; some were fixed in sconces round the walls, and there were others on the table, where also lay the charter, with its engrossed text, and its broad seal. The assemblymen, as the debate seemed to approach its climax, left their seats and crowded round the table, where stood on one side the royal governor, in his scarlet coat laced with gold, his heavy but sharp-featured countenance flushed with irritation, one hand on the hilt of his sword, the other stretched out toward the coveted document:—on the other, the governor chosen by the people, in plain black, with a plain white collar turned down over his doublet, his eyes dark with emotion, his voice vibrating hoarsely as he pleaded with the licensed highwayman of England. Around, is the ring of strong visages, rustic but brainy, frowning, agitated, eager, angry; and the flame of the candles flickering in their heavily-drawn breath.
Suddenly and simultaneously, by a preconcerted signal, the lights are out, and the black darkness has swallowed up the scene. In the momentary silence of astonishment, Andros feels himself violently shoved aside; the hand with which he would draw his sword is in an iron grasp, as heavy as that which he has laid upon colonial freedom. There is a surging of unseen men about him, the shuffling of feet, vague outcries: he knows not what is to come: death, perhaps. Is Sir Edmund afraid? We have no information as to the physical courage of the man, further than that in 1675 he had been frightened into submission by the farmers and fishermen at Fort Saybrook. But he need not have been a coward to feel the blood rush to his heart during those few blind moments. Men of such lives as his are always ready to suspect assassination.
But assassination is not an American method of righting wrong. Anon the steel had struck the flint, and the spark had caught the tinder, and one after another the candles were alight once more. All stared at one another: what had happened? Andros, his face mottled with pallor, was pulling himself together, and striving to resume the arrogant insolence of his customary bearing. He opens his mouth to speak, but only a husky murmur replaces the harsh stridency of his usual utterance. "What devilish foolery is this—" But ere he can get further, some bucolic statesman brings his massive palm down on the table with a bang that makes the oaken plank crack, and thunders out—"The charter! Where's our charter?"
Where, indeed? That is one of those historic secrets which will probably never be decided one way or the other. "There is no contemporary record of this event." No: but, somehow or other, one hears of Yankee Captain Joe Wadsworth, with the imaginative audacity and promptness of resource of his race, snatching the parchment from the table in the midst of the groping panic, and slipping out through the crowd: he has passed the door and is inhaling with grateful lungs the fresh coolness of the cloudy October night. Has any one seen him go? Did any one know what he did?—None who will reveal it. He is astride his mare, and they are off toward the old farm, where his boyhood was spent, and where stands the great hollow oak which, thirty years ago, Captain Joe used to canvass for woodpeckers' nests and squirrel hordes. He had thought, in those boyish days, what a good hiding-place the old tree would make; and the thought had flashed back into his mind while he listened to that fight for the charter to-day. It did not take him long to lay his plot, and to agree with his few fellow-conspirators. Sir Edmund can snatch the government, and scrawl Finis at the foot of the Connecticut records; but that charter he shall never have, nor shall any man again behold it, until years have passed away, and Andros has vanished forever from New England.
Meanwhile, he returned to Boston, there, for a season, to make "the wicked walk on every side, and the vilest to be exalted." Then came that famous April day of 1689; and, following, event after event, one storming upon another's heels, as the people rose from their long bondage, and hurled their oppressors down. The bearer of the news that William of Orange had landed in England, was imprisoned, but it was too late. Andros ordered his soldiers under arms; but the commander of the frigate had been taken prisoner by the Boston ship-carpenters; the sheriff was arrested; hundreds of determined men surrounded the regimental headquarters; the major resisted in vain; the colors and drums were theirs; a vast throng at the town house greeted the venerable Bradstreet; the insurrection was proclaimed, and Andros and his wretched followers, flying to the frigate, were seized and cast into prison. "Down with Andros and Randolph!" was the cry; and "The old charter once more!" It was a hundred years to a day before that shot fired at Concord and heard round the world.