"O master of these broad estates,
Behold, before your very gates
A worn and wanting laborer waits!
Let me but toil amid your grain,
Or be a gleaner on the plain,
So I may leave these fields of pain!
"A gleaner, I will follow far,
With never look or word to mar,
Behind the Harvest's yellow car:
All day my hand shall constant be,
And every happy eve shall see
The precious burden borne to Thee!"
At morn some reapers neared the place,
Strong men, whose feet recoiled apace,—
Then gathering round the upturned face,
They saw the lines of pain and care,
Yet read in the expression there
The look as of an answered prayer.
THE NEW-ENGLAND REVOLUTION OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
In the first week of March, 1689, Sir Edmund Andros returned to Boston from an expedition against the Indians of Maine. He had now governed New England more than two years for King James II., imitating, in his narrow sphere, the insolent despotism of his master.
The people had no share in the government, which was conducted by Andros with the aid of Counsellors appointed by the King. Some of these were the Governor's creatures,—English adventurers, who came to make their fortunes. Their associates of a different character were so treated that they absented themselves from the Council-Board, and at length not even formal meetings were held. Heavy taxes were arbitrarily imposed on the inhabitants. Excessive fees were demanded for the transaction of business in the courts and public offices. Town-meetings were forbidden, except one to be held in each year for the choice of assessing-officers. The ancient titles to land in the Colony were declared to be worthless, and proprietors were required to secure themselves by taking out new patents from the Governor, for which high prices were extorted. Complaint of these usurpations was severely punished by fine and imprisonment. An order that "no man should remove out of the country without the Governor's leave" cut off whatever small chance existed of obtaining redress in England. The religious feelings of the people were outraged. The Governor directed the opening of the Old South Church in Boston for worship according to the English ritual. If the demand had been for the use of the building for a mass, or for a carriage-house for Juggernaut, it would scarcely have given greater displeasure.
Late in the autumn of 1688, the Governor had led a thousand New-England soldiers into Maine against the Indians. His operations there were unfortunate. The weather was cold and stormy. The fatigue of long marches through an unsettled country was excessive. Sickness spread among the companies. Shelter and hospital-stores had been insufficiently provided. The Indians fled to the woods, and there laughed at the invader.
The costliness, discomforts, and miserable ill-success of this expedition, while they occasioned clamor in the camp, sharpened the discontents existing at the capital. Suspicions prevailed of treachery on the Governor's part, for he was well known to be without the excuse of incompetence. Plausible stories were told of his being in friendly relations with the murderous Indians. An apprehension that he was instructed by his Popish master to turn New England over to the French, in the contingency of a popular outbreak in England, was confirmed by reports of French men-of-war hovering along the coast for the consummation of that object. When, in mid-winter, Andros was informed of the fears entertained at Court of a movement of the Prince of Orange, he issued a proclamation, commanding His Majesty's subjects in New England, and especially all officers, civil and military, to be on the alert, should any foreign fleet approach, to resist such landing or invasion as might be attempted. Not causelessly, even if unjustly, the Governor's object was understood to be to hold New England for King James, if possible, should the parent-country reassert its rights.
Of course, no friendly welcome met him, when, on the heels of his proclamation, he returned to Boston from the Eastern Country. He was himself so out of humor as to be hasty and imprudent, and one of his first acts quickened the popular resentment. The gloomy and jealous state of men's minds had gained some degree of credit for a story that he had furnished the hostile natives with ammunition for the destruction of the force under his command. An Indian declared, in the hearing of some inhabitants of Sudbury, that he knew this to be true. Two of the townsmen took the babbler to Boston, ostensibly to be punished for his license of speech. The Governor treated the informers with great harshness, put them under heavy bonds, and sent one of them to jail. The comment of the time was not unnatural nor uncandid:—"Although no man does accuse Sir Edmund merely upon Indian testimony, yet let it be duly weighed whether it might not create suspicion and an astonishment in the people of New England, in that he did not punish the Indians who thus charged him, but the English who complained of them for it."