and under its own management. By this measure the people's branch of the legislature was made independent and of equal authority with the governor's council. Thus step by step were the safeguards of liberty established and regular forms of government secured.

The people of Massachusetts were little grieved on account of the English Revolution. It was for them a vindication and a victory. The triumph of Parliament over King Charles was the triumph of Puritanism both in England and America. Massachusetts had no cause to fear so long as the House of Commons was crowded with her friends and patrons. But in the hour of victory the American Puritans showed themselves more magnanimous than those of the mother-country; when Charles I., the enemy of all colonial liberties, was brought to the block, the people of New England, whose fathers had been exiled by his father, lamented his tragic fate and preserved the memory of his virtues.

During the supremacy of the Long Parliament several acts were passed which put in peril the interests of Massachusetts, but by a prudent and far-sighted policy all evil results were avoided. Powerful friends, especially Sir Henry Vane, stood up in Parliament and defended the colony against the intrigues of her enemies. Ambassadors, men of age and experience, went often to London to plead for colonial rights. Soon after the abolition of monarchy a statute was made which threatened for a while the complete subversion of the new State. Massachusetts was in-vited to surrender her charter, to receive a new instrument instead, and to hold courts and issue writs in the name of Parliament. The measure seemed fair enough, but the people of New England were too cautious to stake their all on the fate of a Parliament whose power was already waning. The requisition was never complied with. Cromwell did not insist on the surrender; no one else had power to enforce the act; and Massachusetts retained her charter.

The Protector was the constant friend of the American colonies. Even Virginia, though slighting his authority, found him just as well as severe. The people of New England were his special favorites. To them he was bound by every tie of political and religious sympathy. For more than ten years, when he might have been an oppressor, he continued the benefactor, of the English in America. During his administration the northern colonies were left in the full enjoyment of their coveted rights. In commerce, in the industry of private life, and especially in religion, the people of Massachusetts were as free as the people of England.

In the year 1652, it was decreed by the general court at Boston that the jurisdiction of the province extended as far north as three miles above the most northerly waters of the river Merrimac. This declaration,

which was in strict accordance with the charter of the colony, was made for the purpose of annexing Maine to Massachusetts. By this measure the territory of the latter State was extended to Casco Bay. Settlements had been made on the Piscataqua as early as 1626, but had not flourished. Thirteen years later a royal charter was issued to Sir Ferdinand Gorges, a member of the Council of Plymouth, who became proprietor of the province. His cousin, Thomas Gorges, was made deputy-governor. A high-sounding constitution, big enough for an empire, was drawn up, and the little village of Gorgeana, afterward York, became the capital of the kingdom. Meanwhile, in 1630, the Plymouth Council had granted to another corporation sixteen hundred square miles of the territory around Casco Bay, and this claim had been purchased by Rigby, a republican member of Parliament. Between his deputies and those of Gorges violent disputes arose. The villagers of Maine, sympathizing with neither party, and emulous of the growth and prosperity of the southern colonies, laid their grievances before the court at Boston, and the annexation of the province followed.

In July of 1656, the QUAKERS began to arrive at Boston. The first who came were Ann Austin and Mary Fisher. The introduction of the plague would have occasioned less alarm. The two women were caught and searched for marks of witchcraft, their trunks were broken open, their books were burned by the hangman, and they themselves thrown into prison. After several weeks' confinement they were brought forth and banished from the colony. Before the end of the year eight others had been arrested and sent back to England. The delegates of the union were immediately convened, and a rigorous law was passed, excluding all Quakers from the country. Whipping, the loss of one ear and banishment were the penalties for the first offence; after a second conviction the other ear should be cut off; and should the criminal again return, his tongue should be bored through with a red-hot iron.

In 1657, Ann Burden, who had come from London to preach against persecution, was seized and beaten with twenty stripes. Others came, were whipped and exiled. As the law became more cruel and proscriptive, fresh victims rushed forward to brave its terrors. The assembly of the four colonies again convened, and advised the authorities of Massachusetts to pronounce the penalty of death against the fanatical disturbers of the public peace. When the resolutions embodying this advice was put before the assembly, to his everlasting honor, the younger Winthrop, delegate from Connecticut, voted No! Massachusetts accepted the views of the greater number, and the death-penalty was passed by a majority of one vote.

In September of 1659, four persons were arrested and brought to trial under this law. The prisoners were given the option of going into exile or of being hanged. Two of them (Mary Dyar and Nicholas Davis) chose banishment; but the other two (Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson) stood firm, denounced the wickedness of the court, and were sentenced to death. Mary Dyar, in whom the love of martyrdom had triumphed over fear, now returned, and was also condemned. On the 27th of October the three were led forth to execution. The men were hanged without mercy; and the woman, after the rope had been adjusted to her neck, was reprieved only to be banished. She was conveyed beyond the limits of the colony, but immediately returned and was executed. William Leddra was next seized, tried and sentenced. As in the case of the others, he was offered perpetual exile instead of death. He refused, and was hanged.

Before the trial of Leddra was concluded, Wenlock Christison, who had already been banished, rushed into the court-room and began to upbraid the judges for shedding the blood of the innocent. When put on his second trial, he spoke boldly in his own defence; but the jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and he was condemned to die. Others, eager for the honor of martyrdom, came forward in crowds, and the jails were filled with voluntary prisoners. But before the day arrived for Christison's execution, the public conscience was aroused; the law was repealed, the prisondoors were opened, and Christison, with twenty-seven companions, came forth free. The bloody reign of proscription had ended, but not until four innocent enthusiasts had given their lives for liberty of conscience.

But let a veil be drawn over this sorrowful event. The history of all times is full of scenes of violence and wrong. It could not be expected that an American colony, founded by exiles, pursued with malice and beset with dangers, should be wholly exempt from the shame of evil deeds. The Puritans established a religious rather than a civil commonwealth; whatever put the faith of the people in peril seemed to them more to be dreaded than pestilence or death. To ward off heresy, even by destroying the heretic, seemed only a natural self-defence. A nobler lesson has been learned in the light of better times.

The English Revolution had now run its course. Cromwell was dead. The Commonwealth tottered and fell. Charles II. was restored to the throne of his ancestors. Tidings of the Restoration reached Boston on the 27th of July, 1660. In the same vessel that bore the news came Edward Whalley and William Goffe, two of the judges who had passed sentence of death on Charles I. It was now their turn to save their lives by flight. Governor Endicott received them with courtesy; the agents

from the British government came in hot pursuit with orders to arrest them. For a while the fugitives, aided by the people of Boston, baffled the officers, and then escaped to New Haven. Here for many weeks they lay in concealment; not even the Indians would accept the reward which was offered for their apprehension. At last the exiles reached the valley of the Connecticut and found refuge at the village of Hadley, where they passed the remainder of their lives. It was in October of this same fatal year that Hugh Peters, the old friend of the colony, the fatherin-law of the younger Winthrop, was hanged at London. The noble Sir Henry Vane was hunted down in Holland, surrendered to the English government, condemned and beheaded.

Owing to the partiality of Cromwell, the restrictions on colonial commerce which bore so heavily on Virginia were scarcely felt by Massachusetts. On the restoration of monarchy a severer policy was at once adopted. All vessels not bearing the English flag were forbidden to enter the harbors of New England. A law of exportation was enacted by which all articles produced in the colonies and demanded in England should be shipped to England only. Such articles of American production as the English merchants did not desire might be sold in any of the ports of Europe. The law of importation was equally odious; such articles as were produced in England should not be manufactured in America, and should be bought from England only. Free trade between the colonies was forbidden; and a duty of five per cent., levied for the benefit of the English king, was put on both exports and imports. Human ingenuity could hardly have invented a set of measures better calculated to produce an AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

In 1664, war broke out between England and Holland. It became a part of the English military plans to reduce the Dutch settlements on the Hudson; and for this purpose a fleet was sent to America. But there was another purpose also. Charles II. was anxious to obtain control of the New England colonies, that he might govern them according to the principles of arbitrary power. The chief obstacle to this undertaking was the charter of Massachusetts-an instrument given under the great seal of England, and not easily revoked. To accomplish the same end by other means was now the object of the king; and with this end in view four commissioners were appointed with instructions to go to America, to sit in judgment upon all matters of complaint that might arise in New England, to settle colonial disputes, and to take such other measures as might seem most likely to establish peace and good order in the country. The royal commissioners embarked in the British fleet, and in July arrived at Boston.

They were not wanted at Boston. The people of Massachusetts knew very well that the establishment of this supreme judgeship in their midst was a flagrant violation of their chartered right of self-government. Before the commissioners landed the patent was put into the hands of a committee for safe keeping. A decree of the general court forbade the citizens to answer any summons issued by the royal judges. A powerful letter, full of loyalty and manly protests, was sent directly to the king. The commissioners became disgusted with the treatment which they received at the hands of the refractory colony, and repaired to Maine and New Hampshire. Here they were met with some marks of favor; but their official acts were disregarded and soon forgotten. In Rhode Island the judges were received with great respect, and their decisions accepted as the decisions of the king. The towns of Connecticut were next visited; but the people were cold and indifferent, and the commissioners retired. Meanwhile, the English monarch, learning how his grand judges had been treated, sent a message of recall, and before the end of the year they gladly left the country. After a gallant fight, Massachusetts had preserved her liberties. Left in the peaceable enjoyment of her civil rights, she entered upon a new career of prosperity which, for a period of ten years, was marked with no calamity.

MASS

CHAPTER XV.

MASSACHUSETTS.-KING PHILIP'S WAR.

ASSASOIT, the old sachem of the Wampanoags, died in 1662. For forty-one years he had faithfully kept the treaty made by himself with the first settlers at Plymouth. His elder son, Alexander, now became chief of the nation, but died within the year; and the chieftainship descended to the younger brother, PHILIP OF MOUNT HOPE. It was the fate of this brave and able man to lead his people in a final and hopeless struggle against the supremacy of the whites. Causes of war had existed for many years, and the time had come for the conflict.

The unwary natives of New England had sold their lands. The English were the purchasers; the chiefs had signed the deeds; the price had been fairly paid. Year by year the territory of the tribes had narrowed; the old men died, but the deeds remained and the lands could not be recovered. There were at this time in the country east of the