XIV. Maine, as well as to that part of New Hampshire east CHAPTER of the Merrimac, appeared so plain to the English lawyers that the agents hardly attempted a defense. 1677. The king had intended to purchase Maine as an appanage for the Duke of Monmouth, his illegitimate son. But Massachusetts was beforehand with him; and, through the agency of Usher, a wealthy Boston merchant, Gorges was induced, for the sum of £1200, to sell out all his rights as proprietary, thus confirming the May 6. jurisdiction of Massachusetts, and giving her a title to the ungranted soil. It is worthy of notice, as throwing some light on the habits of the colonists, at least a part of them, that this Usher, the richest merchant in Boston, had acquired his fortune in the bookselling business. A London stationer, who presently visited Boston with a venture of books, "most of them practical," and so "well suited to the genius of New England," found no less than four booksellers established in that town. The province of Maine, as purchased by Massachusetts, was bounded by the Kennebec. Sagadahoc, the territory, that is, from the Kennebec to the Penobscot, was claimed as forming a part of New York. Jurisdiction over its few scattered hamlets had lately been assumed on behalf of the duke by Andros, governor of that province, who built a fort at Pemaquid, and terminated the Indian war in that quarter by agreeing to pay the Indians a tribute, or quit-rent, of a peck of corn for each English family. A treaty with these tribes, concluded about the same time by the Massachusetts authorities at Casco, gave peace to the eastern coasts; not, however, till the set- 1678. tlements of Maine had lost at least half of their inhabit- April 12. ants-a bitter foretaste of wars to come. The country east of the Penobscot, though included XIV. CHAPTER as far as the St. Croix in the Duke of York's charter, was claimed by the French as a part of Acadie. The 1677. Baron Castin, a man of intrigue and enterprise, who had borne a commission as captain in the regiment of Carignan, sent to Canada, established himself on the west shore of the Penobscot, on the spot which still bears his name. He succeeded to that Indian trade formerly carried on from the same spot by D'Aulney; and, having taken several Indian wives, daughters of the chiefs, he acquired a great influence among the Indians of that vicinity. Castin and other French traders furnished the Eastern Indians with arms and ammunition. The French missionaries converted them to the Catholic faith. Both were believ ed to exercise an influence unfavorable to the English. The jealousy of the English merchants once excited, they soon renewed their complaints of the disregard by Massachusetts of the acts of trade. The Committee for Plantations, to whom these complaints were referred, suggested, as the only effectual remedy, "a governor wholly to be supported by his majesty." Randolph, who had carried back to England very exaggerated accounts of the wealth and population of Massachusetts, soon returned to Boston, authorized to administer to the New England governors an oath to enforce the acts of trade. Leverett, on the ground that no such oath was. required by the charter, refused to take it. The General Oct. Court, however, enacted a law of their own for enforcing the navigation acts. They re-enacted, also, the original oath of fidelity, by which allegiance was sworn to the king as well as the colony. They voted a present to the king of cranberries, "special good samp" and codfish, and sent an humble petition, with another also from the New Hampshire towns, that they might be allowed to retain jurisdiction as far as the Piscataqua. XIV. May 1. The Baptist Church in Boston, after meeting for CHAPTER fourteen years in private houses, part of the time with much secrecy, had caused a building to be erected for a 1677. meeting house. As soon as the purpose of this building 1678. became known, a law was enacted forbidding the erection of any meeting house except with the consent of the freemen of the town and the County Court, or by approbation, on appeal, of the General Court; and subjecting any buildings erected contrary to the act, and the land on which they stood, to forfeiture. Oct. The oath of allegiance, by which the king and the colony were put upon a level, did not give satisfaction in England. Randolph presently reappeared with an oath drawn out in form. The magistrates took it themselves, and imposed it on all other officers. Letters, meanwhile, had arrived from the agents, with accounts of new complaints against the colony; objections to their laws, as contradicting those of England; their imposition of duties on imports from England; their neglect of the acts of trade; shelter to the regicides; execution of Quakers; coining money not in the king's image; and use of the word "commonwealth" in their laws. To these objections the court replied, defending some points, apologizing for others; excusing themselves for their neglect of the acts of navigation on the ground that, not being represented in Parliament, they had not supposed themselves bound by those acts. Though "a great discouragement to trade," they promised, however, to submit to them to any thing, indeed, short of compromising the "interest of the Lord Jesus and his churches situate in this wilderness." On that point they would yield nothing. Leverett presently died in office. The choice of Brad- 1679. street to fill his place was an evidence of the progress of the moderate party. May. CHAPTER A synod was presently called to inquire "what reaXIV. sons had provoked the Lord to bring his judgments on 1679. New England." This synod, of which Increase Mather Sept. 10. drew up the result, denounced a list of sins nearly iden 1680. Feb. tical with those to which the General Court had ascribed the late Indian war. The confession of faith and system of discipline were revised and confirmed. Reformation was earnestly recommended, and a return to the piety and austerity of former times. The agents soon returned with a royal letter demanding toleration for all sects except papists; the choice of the full number of eighteen assistants; the issue of all commissions, military and civil, in the king's name; the repeal of all laws repugnant to the acts of trade; the assignment of Maine to the king, on receiving the amount paid for it; what was most unpalatable of all, the surrender of the peculiar privileges of church members, by establishing a pecuniary qualification as the sole one for admission to the freedom of the colony. New agents were to be appointed within six months, with full power to make the concessions demanded. Stoughton had been a great stickler for theocracy, as evinced by his election sermon in 1668. He was still much inclined that way. But, looking to the future, and seeing power about to pass into other hands, he was disposed also "to stand right to his majesty's interest." The returning agents were quickly followed by the July. busy Randolph, who came out with a commission as collector of the royal customs for New England, and inspector for enforcing the acts of trade-an office to which he had been appointed some time before, but the commission for which had been hitherto kept back, because there appeared no source, except the empty royal exchequer, out of which to pay his salary. He pressed XIV. Randolph presented his commission to the Massachu- CHAPTER setts court, but they took no notice of it. them to say if they allowed it to be valid, but they made 1680. no answer. The notice of his appointment, posted up at the public exchange, was torn down by order of the magistrates; and the General Court presently erected a naval office of their own, at which all vessels were required to enter and clear, as Randolph alleged, for the very purpose of superseding his authority. Encouraged by the king's demand for toleration, con- March. strued as superseding the "by-laws" of the colony, the Baptists ventured to hold a service in their new meeting house. For this they were summoned before the magistrates, and, when they refused to desist, the doors were nailed up, and the following order posted upon them: "All persons are to take notice, that, by order of the court, the doors of this house are shut up, and that they are inhibited to hold any meeting therein, or to open the doors thereof, without license from authority, till the General Court take further order, as they will answer the contrary at their peril." When the General Court May 19. met, the Baptists pleaded that their house was built before any law was made to prevent it. This plea was so far allowed that their past offenses were forgiven. they were not allowed to open the house. But It had been strongly intimated in the result of the late synod that the Baptists were guilty "of setting up an altar against the Lord's altar." Increase Mather, in his "Divine Right of Infant Baptism," now published, charged them, also, with "the sin of Jeroboam, who made priests out of the lowest of the people." To a vindication by Elder Russell of himself and his brethren, containing an account of the late proceedings, sent to London and printed there, Willard, minister of the South |