In 1677, the controversy which had been so long pending between Massachusetts and the heirs of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, relative to Maine, was decided by Massachusetts purchasing their claim through the agency of a wealthy Boston merchant, from the said heirs, for £1,200; and thus, spite of Charles II.’s wish to obtain it as an appanage for the Duke of Monmouth, Maine became a province of the State of Massachusetts. The extent of the province, however, was not equal to that which constitutes the present State of Maine. France occupied the district from St. Croix to the Penobscot, and New York that between the Penobscot and the Kennebec.
New Hampshire had now for some years submitted to the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, under which it was greatly content; but Mason’s claims, which had long lain dormant, having been again revived in England, were only decided to be valid with respect to unappropriated land; and the government, wishful to humble and mortify Massachusetts, pronounced the towns on the Piscataqua not to be within her limits, and, in 1679, proceeded formally to separate New Hampshire from her jurisdiction. New Hampshire was now erected into a royal province, the assembly to be chosen by the people, the president and council to be appointed by the crown. This change was extremely unwelcome to the people of New Hampshire, and the following year the General Assembly sorrowfully addressed the friends from whom they were severed in these words:—“We thankfully acknowledge your kindness while we dwelt under your shadow, avowing ourselves deeply obliged that, on our earnest request, you took us under your government and ruled us well. If there be opportunity for us to be in anywise serviceable to you, we shall show you how ready we are to embrace it. Wishing the presence of God to be with you, we crave the benefit of your prayers on us who are separated from our brethren.”
The colony, now a royal province, endeavoured nevertheless still to maintain the principles of democratic liberty in the new code which was drawn up by the General Assembly, but which was utterly disapproved and rejected when sent to England. Mason also found it next to impossible to establish his claims even to unappropriated lands, and returning to England, sent over one Cranfield, a needy adventurer, as his agent and as governor of the province, with a mortgage on the whole for twenty-one years, the crown being a party to the arrangement and receiving from Mason one-fifth of all quit-rents for the support of the government, which revenue was allowed to Cranfield as his salary. Full of the hope of speedily making a large fortune, Cranfield arrived in the province, but only to find that he had to deal with men of a determined and patriotic spirit, ready in every way to oppose his aggressions under whatever form they might appear. The people were vexed with lawsuits and the imposition of fines from one end of the province to the other. In vain the governor made use of every subterfuge to raise money and to intimidate; now on the pretence of invasion, now by prosecutions regarding church discipline, now by the terror of an approaching Indian war. It was to no purpose; he had to deal with a people firm as the granite mountains of their land, and from their steadfastness, rather than from the character of these bulwarks of nature, New Hampshire to this day retains the appellation of the Granite State.
It was impossible to gather the illegal taxes which Cranfield imposed. Associations were formed to resist their collection. At one town the sheriff was driven away with clubs, and his officer threatened with spits and scalding water by the irate and determined farmers’ wives, whose household goods he was about to distrain upon; in another place he was despoiled of his signs of office, and with a rope round his neck, conveyed out of the province. Cranfield was soon as glad to withdraw from “these unreasonable people,” as he termed them, as Mason had been before him.
Returning now to Massachusetts, against whom not only the Tory party, now in power, but the commercial interests of England were placed in such hostile array, we find a question started which was calculated to shake her to the very centre. Seeing it was impossible to bring her to obedience by any measure which had hitherto been tried, a question was started “as to the legal entity of her charter;” and the crown not being able to deny the validity of the patent, a writ of quo warranto, before which the cities and boroughs of England had just yielded, was proposed. The colony beheld the gloomy aspect of the future with sentiments of deep emotion, and again a religious fervour, almost superstitious, possessed all hearts. The most solemn religious observances were adopted; the elders took it again into serious deliberation as to what were the sins of New England for which Heaven visited her with such signal judgments. As before, in the terror of the Indians, the pardonable sins of youthful levity and love of pleasure were looked upon as offensive to God, and still greater austerity of life was imposed. They forgot what, in truth, were the crying sins of the colony—spiritual pride, bigotry and intolerance—the want of charity and mercy, whether to Anabaptists, Quakers, or Indians. The colony, like some sinful city of old, again humbled itself as in sackcloth and ashes, but “the anger of the Lord was not turned aside.”
English enactments, in 1678, began to be in force; high treason became a capital offence; the oath of allegiance was required, and the king’s arms were erected in the court-house. The colony, however, wishful to save its charter, was willing to make some concessions; therefore resorting to an expedient which might save their honour, the general court gave validity to the long opposed Navigation Laws by an act of its own. Massachusetts asserted thus the right to govern herself; and Charles, still more exasperated, resolved on her humiliation. A struggle ensued, during which Edward Randolph was twice sent from England to assist in bringing the stiff-necked colony into order.
EJECTMENT OF THE SHERIFF BY THE PEOPLE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
At length, in February, 1682, affairs growing more and more desperate, two agents, fully empowered to act for the colony, were sent over from New England, the prayers of the whole commonwealth accompanying them, not only for their safety, but for the safety of the patent—their great charter of liberty. But they were unsuccessful; perhaps because, to use the phraseology of those times, “the anger of the Lord was against them,” they having, as it appears to us, unworthily, in imitation of France and the whole spirit of the English court, gone with a bribe in their hands.
But bribes or concessions were equally unavailing; there was no hope for the charter. In vain was Massachusetts moved, from one boundary to another, as by a public calamity, in which every household, every individual suffered; in vain it was spoken of everywhere; in vain deplored; in vain was it the subject of household prayer and of the Sabbath sermon; the charter was doomed, and the unsuccessful agents returned. Again the hated Randolph arrived in a royal frigate, bringing with him a writ of quo warranto, which was served by himself on the magistrates. But the king was willing to be gracious, and would Massachusetts only submit, “as few innovations should be made as possible, consistent with a royal government;” such was the message of irritated majesty received by the democratic state.