messengers amongst themselves, or in case of any contumacy in any of the offending parties, the civil magistrates' help being implored by them that are aggrieved, that useth always to put a final end to all matters of controversy amongst any of their churches.

In like manner do all Protestant divines allow a power in the civil magistrate, not only in worldly regiment, but also in spiritual, for the preservation of the church, i. e. in cases temporal, so far as belongeth to the outward preservation, not to the personal administration of them, which is the substance of our English Oath of Supremacy, as a learned man observes.

It is true that, in the primitive times, infidels were converted to the faith, and churches established and kept up, when there was no assistance, but rather opposition, from the Princes of the earth, as saith the same author. And the benefit we have now, by Christian magistrates, was then more abundantly supplied by the miracles wrought, and the constant direction and care of Apostolic and extraordinary persons, who were gifted by Christ for the purpose; but in following times the ordinary helps and external means for the upholding and maintaining of peace and truth in the churches, sc. in way of a civil power, is only a pious and Christian magistracy, where a nation is blessed with it, so as by the help of the ecclesiastical and the civil power, acting in a way of subordination each unto other, all differences arising may easily be composed there, as well as in any other place, as instances might easily be given, of the issue of some late differences in several of the churches there of late, as, namely, at Newbury, Salem, and at Salisbury, the particulars whereof need not here be inserted. By such means hath truth and order been maintained, [and] peace restored unto the several churches within the jurisdictions of New England, in all former times, since the first planting, and may accordingly be expected for the future.

26*

CHAP. LXXI.1

General affairs of the Massachusetts, from the year 1671

to 1676.

In the beginning of this last epocha, or series of years, Mr. Bellingham was again chosen Governor of the Massachusetts, and Major John Leverett (to whose lot it had fallen some years before to be the Major General of the Massachusetts Colony,) was at the same time, May 31, 1671, called by the general consent of the electors to be Deputy Governor, in the room of Mr. Willoughby, that formerly supplied that place, and always by his gravity and prudence, as well as by his integrity and faithfulness, well becoming the dignity thereof.3

In the year 1672, Harvard College being decayed, a liberal contribution was granted for rebuilding the same, which was so far promoted from that time, that, in the year 1677, a fair and stately edifice of brick was erected anew, not far from the place where the former stood, and so far finished that the public acts of the Commencement were there performed, over which God send or confirm and continue a President, for the carrying on of that hopeful work, that so the glory of the succeeding may in all respects equal and exceed that of the former generation.'

In the end of the year 16725 an end was put to the life and government of Mr. Bellingham, a very ancient gentleman, having spun a long thread of above eighty years he was a great justiciary, a notable hater of bribes, firm and fixed in any resolution he entertained, of larger comprehension than expression, like a vessel whose vent holdeth no good proportion with its capacity to contain, a disadvantage to a public person; had he not been a little too much overpowered with the humor of melancholy in his natural constitution, (the infirmities of which tincture did now and then appear in his dispensing of justice,) he had been very well qualified for a GoverHe had been bred a lawyer, yet turned strangely, although upon very pious considerations, as some have

nor.

In 1664, says Farmer.-H.

1 LXX in the MS.-H. • See page 518.-H. 'See Mather's Magnalia, iv. p. 129; Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ. i. 30-1, 508-9.-H. Dec. 7th. See Savage's Winthrop, i. 145.-H.

judged, out of the ordinary road thereof, in the making of his last will and testament, which defect, if there were any, was abundantly supplied by the power of the General Court, so as that no prejudice did arise to his successors about his estate.

In the following year, 1673, May 7th, Major John Leverett was invited by the free and general consent of the freemen of the Massachusetts, to take the Governor's place after him, which he held ever since unto his life's end. His choice at this time was a little remarkable, in that he, being one of the junior magistrates, was called first to be Deputy, then Governor, which, according to the usual course of succession, belonged to the senior. Thus many times things so fall out that the last shall be first. What his administration hath been in the time past, as to wisdom, justice, courage, and liberality is known to all; in that which is to come, is left to be related by them to whose lot it may fall to write the Epilogue of New England's story, which God grant it may not prove so tragical as it hath been in the four last years preceding. But, as is well known, since God took him out of this troublesome world, March 16, 1678,' he hath, in his merciful Providence, called one2a to preside as chief in authority over the Colony of the Massachusetts, who, by his sage wisdom, and long experience, (even ever since the first coming over of the Patentees,) hath been found the best able to take upon him the conduct of affairs in those difficult times, that have since happened, sufficient to have tried the wisdom of all that preceded in that station.3

This year, Monsieur Colve, coming with a few ships and soldiers from the West Indies, surprised the fort at Manhatos, or New York, in the absence of Colonel Lovelace, the Governor under his Highness the Duke of York, which might have proved no small disadvantage to the Colonies of New England, the Dutch having thereby an opportunity to seize many of their vessels, as they passed to and from the West Indies, who were wont to stop on the other side of the Cape Shoals; and many of their vessels were, during the time he held the place, surprized by his orders, which put the country upon a resolu

Old style. His funeral, which was very splendid, took place on March 25, 1679. See Whitman's Hist. Anc. and Hon. Artil. Company, (2d ed., 8vo. Bost. 1842,) p. 95.-H. Simon Bradstreet.-H. Conjectural.-H. July 30, 1673. See Thompson's Long Island, i. 150, et seq.-H.

tion to secure their vessels on that side of the Cape; but by good Providence the quarrel betwixt the English and the Dutch being ended, those places were again peaceably surrendered' into the hands of the English, so as from that time free intercourse and traffic being allowed for the trading vessels, it is hoped the country may now flourish for the future more than formerly.

The Court of Election, from the beginning of this lustre, fell out in 1671, May 31; 1672, May 15; 1673, May 7; 1674, May 27; 1675, May 12; 1676,2 May 3; 1677, May 27; in every of which, since the year 1672, unless in 1678,3 May 8, when Mr. Bradstreet was first chosen Governor, and Mr. Danforth, of Cambridge, Deputy, Major Leverett hath been honored with the place of Governor over the Massachusetts Colony. And the principal transactions which have since happened there, relate either to their troubles with the Indians, (of which more may be seen in the narrative forementioned, and the continuation thereof in the following chapter,) or else to the controversy which lately arose, and is yet depending between the heirs of one Captain Mason and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who have several times complained against the said Colony to his Majesty, and, by reiterated petitions, requested for an hearing thereof before him, [and] have, by much importunity, at last obtained their desire.

The substance of their complaint was, that whereas, as they pretended, a grant had been made by the Council of Plymouth to the said Captain John Mason and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, of a distinct Province to each of them, the one called Hampshire, the other Maine, both in the years 1621, 1622, and 1629 and 1635, and that they had, by the expense of many thousand pounds there, taken possession by their agents, yet that they had been dispossessed thereof, by violence and strong hand, by some persons employed by the government of the said Colony of the Massachusetts, and, notwithstanding all applications made unto them, could obtain no redress or relief of their injuries and wrongs, &c.

By these kind of petitions they prevailed so far as to

See in N. H.

By the Treaty of Westminster, Feb. 9, 1674.-H. Hist. Coll. iii. 99-100, "The Names of eighteen Gentlemen, who had most Votes for Magistrates, as appears at opening the sd Votes at Boston, April 11t: 1676, with the number of votes for each."-H.

A mistake; it should be 1679. See page 611.-H.

obtain letters from his Majesty, March 10th,' 167, requiring the Colony aforesaid to send over agents to appear before him in six months after the receipt of the said letters, with full instructions impowered to answer for them, that so they might receive his royal determination in that matter depending for judgment before him.

This command of his Majesty was carefully observed by the Massachusetts, and notwithstanding the many difficulties they were at that time incumbered withal, by reason of their war with the Indians, and the great distance of place, and other sad calamities, they deputed as their agents, Mr. William Stoughton and Mr. Buckley, to take that service upon them, who were ready to attend his Majesty's pleasure at Whitehall, within the time limited in his royal letters; and not long after, upon a just hearing of the allegations of each party, his Majesty was pleased to give his final determination, wherein he saw cause to confirm unto the Massachusetts their Charter, with the original bounds of the same, contrary to the expectation of the petitioners, who had, at least one of them, endeavored by sundry allegations, to have vacated the same; and the Province of Maine was also, by the said determination, not altered, but left to the heirs of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, both as to the soil and government. But as for the Province which was demanded by Mr. Mason, his plea not being made for any right of government, himself was left at liberty to take his course at law to recover his interest, whatever it was, in the soil. But how the government of the said Province shall be disposed of, was then left to his Majesty's determination, who then gave his subjects in that country a ground of hope, that as they have given a good example to all the rest of his Plantations in America, of industry and sobriety, so they shall not want any due encouragement from himself, both of protection, and an equal participation of all other acts of his royal grace and favor, which others already have had, or hereafter have hope to receive.

The gentlemen forenamed, having been detained in England for the space of three years, to give answer to

Edward Randolph, who brought these letters, sailed from the Downs March 30th, and arrived at Boston June 10th, 1676. See his Narrative in Hutch. Coll. Papers, in which the letters of the King are said to have been dated" 20th of March last."-H. 2 They sailed for England Oct. 30, 1676. Hutchinson, i. 281.-H.