CHANGES IN FORM OF GOVERNMENT.—SIR EDMOND ANDROS APPOINTED GOVERNOR.—HE OPPRESSES THE COLONISTS AND IS FINALLY DEPOSED.

Thus a provisional government took the place of the charter government under which New England had grown so rapidly. A great and successful experiment in political science was suddenly checked, and hopes which had led so many devout and earnest men to renounce the conveniences of home for the perils and discomforts of a wilderness were rudely crushed at the very moment when they seemed nearest their fulfillment. The same blow which fell upon Rhode Island fell with equal fatality upon Massachusetts and Connecticut. The government by charter ceased. The two most active agents of James in this remoulding of the government of the colonies were Dudley, President of the Council, and Randolph, the Secretary, whose despotic conduct in Boston has already been mentioned. Here was a broader and more congenial field.

It was resolved as has been seen to address the King in behalf of the Colony, and John Greene, venerable by years and illustrious by public services, was appointed to carry the address to England and advocate it as agent for the Colony. He had watched over the cradle of the Colony—who so fit to stand by its grave.

Unfortunately, party had lost none of its virulence even in this supreme hour, and a small minority of dissentients was found to the sober and judicious conduct of the Assembly. Among them were members of the Atherton company, and among their methods of attack were bitter aspersions upon the personal character of the colonial agent. The provisional government found enough to do in preparing the colonies for their new life, and one of their earliest measures was a final organization of King’s Province. Among the changes that they made was the changing of the names of its three towns. Kingston, the largest, was called Rochester, Westerly, the next in size, became Haversham, and East Greenwich, the smallest, took the name of Dedford. The western boundary of Haversham was Pawcatuck River. Dedford was extended on the north to Warwick, and enlarged by the peninsula of Potowomut. Part of the actual settlers were living on land to which they had no legal claim. PreËmption rights were granted them and time given them to “arrange with the owners by rent or purchase.”

At last, on the 20th of December, 1686, the Royal Governor, Sir Edmond Andros, arrived in Boston. He came in a ship of the royal navy and brought with him two companies of the royal army, the first regular troops that had ever been seen in Massachusetts. He had already been in the colonies and knew the spirits with whom he would have to deal. Rhode Island, like her sisters, had everything to fear from his arbitrary will. But she had treated him with respectful consideration on his former visit, and was now treated by him with less than his usual harshness.

He entered at once upon his welcome task, the transformation of a constitutional government into a despotism. Massachusetts came first in order, and the very first blow was a deadly one, an outrage upon her convictions and a deep humiliation to her pride. Her Puritan theocracy, which had penetrated every part of her civil polity, was overthrown, and the service of the church of England was openly celebrated. In this Rhode Island had no change to fear, for freedom of conscience was, till other ends were accomplished, the doctrine of the King himself. In all other things all the colonies fared alike.

We have seen how watchful Rhode Island was of the taxing power, and how nearly she had reached the great fundamental principle that taxation and representation go together. Andros sent out his tax-gatherers without consulting the tax-payers. His object was to raise money, no matter how. Farming the revenue, always a favorite device of despotism, offered facilities which he promptly turned to account. The augmentation of fees was an abundant source. Those of probate were increased twenty-fold. Writs of intrusion opened another channel for organized robbery. No one could tell how soon he might be compelled to buy his farm over again. Even marriage afforded a field for the display of arbitrary power. Necessity at first compelled the government to recognize the validity of civil marriages. But as the transformation of laws and usages progressed, no marriages were recognized as valid which were not celebrated according to the rights of the Church of England. To feel the odious tyranny of this law it should be remembered that there was but one Episcopal clergyman in the Colony. Another oppressive act was the introduction of passports, whether for the fees they brought in or in order to throw obstacles in the way of a free communication among the colonies, it would be difficult to tell.

Andros’s commission gave him the power to appoint and remove his counselors at will. The council consisted of nineteen members, five of whom were from Rhode Island. One of them, John Greene, was absent on his agency in England. Their first meeting was held at Boston. In this the usual oaths of allegiance and office were taken, the two Quaker members from Rhode Island being allowed to make their affirmation. All officers in commission were continued in office during the Governor’s pleasure, and all laws that did not clash with the laws of England, were retained. The first was the only full meeting of this impotent board, which only met to confirm the resolves of an arbitrary Governor. In substance Andros had his own way, though not without occasional opposition and now and then humiliation. In Rhode Island the charter was adroitly put out of his reach by Governor Clarke and not reproduced till he had left Newport. In Connecticut it was hidden in the hollow of an oak. The seal of Rhode Island was broken. The members of the council were constantly changing, and few of them, according to Randolph, cared for the King. “His Excellency has to do with a perverse people.”

We meet some of the questions of our own day. Licenses for the sale of liquor were granted in Newport, but no liquor could be sold in King’s Province. How well the prohibition was obeyed it is impossible to say. Poor laws also appear in the guise of taxes for the support of that perplexing part of the population. It would be tedious and useless to follow the despotic Governor through all the changes of his administration of two years and four months. Suffice it to say that he had fully imbibed the spirit of his master, and did all that he could to reduce the colonies to servitude. A few provisions, however, may be mentioned as illustrating the condition of the country. With the growth of the towns fires became sources of danger. To enforce watchfulness the person in whose house a fire broke out was fined two and sixpence, and for still greater security every householder was required to set “a ladder reaching to the ridge pole, to every house that he owned.” Attention was called to the fishing in Pettaquamscot pond and an order passed for encouraging it. A tax was laid for the extermination of wolves, which seem still to have been very numerous.

In April, 1688, Andros’s commission was enlarged so as to comprise New York and the Jerseys, all under the general appellation of New England. Enlarged powers and minute instructions accompanied the new commission, and among the former was the subjection of the press to the will of the Governor.

But another change was drawing nigh. There was nothing in common between James the Second and the New England colonist, and Andros represented his master too faithfully not to be bitterly hated. Even Thanksgiving, that thoroughly New England festival, was neglected when announced by his proclamation. Some spoke out their detestation openly to his face. “I suppose,” he said one morning to Dr. Hooker, the great clerical wit of Hartford, “all the good people of Connecticut are fasting and praying on my account.” “Yes,” replied the Doctor, “we read, ‘This kind goeth not out but by fasting and prayer.’”

Rhode Island suffered less at his hands than any other colony. The enforced toleration which excited such strong feelings in Massachusetts met with no opposition in a territory where Baptists and Quakers and Puritans and Separatists worshipped according to their own convictions. John Greene soon became aware that there was no prospect of a return to the free life of the charter so long as James held the throne. Therefore, without renouncing the hope of a better future, he confined his negotiations for the present to questions of minor, though important bearing. Chief among them was the putting an end to the intrusions of the outside claimants to Narragansett. This brought up all the unsettled claims which had been so pertinaciously enforced and so firmly resisted. The Atherton claim was thrown out by the Commissioners as extorted from the Indians by fear. The Connecticut claim was repudiated upon grounds set forth in the Rhode Island charter. Several individual titles, both Indian and English, were considered, and after careful examination, the right of Rhode Island to King’s Province was confirmed for the third time—“against Connecticut in point of jurisdiction, and against the so-called proprietors in point of ownership.” This report was met in England by a petition of Lord Culpepper in behalf of the Atherton company for grants of land not already occupied and the bass ponds, upon such quit rents as might seem good to the King. The petition was granted in part and Andros was intrusted to “assign them such lands as had not already been occupied—at a quit rent of two and sixpence for every hundred acres.”

Thus far Rhode Island has come off with honor in her contests with her neighbors. There was one, however, in which she won no honor. A party of unfortunate Huguenots had established themselves in King’s Province, forming a little settlement of their own and paying honestly for their lands. But the French name was not loved in the colonies and their Protestant neighbors persecuted them away. Traces of them may still be found in the neighborhood where they settled, which bears to this day the name of Frenchtown.

Meanwhile great changes were taking place in England, where James was rapidly running his career of bigotry and oppression. Slow as the communications between the mother country and her colonies were there was still communication enough to enable the latter to form some conception of the state of public feeling in the former. The new government had never acquired any stability in New England. The Council was constantly changing, and after the first meeting never all met together again. The public mind was ripe for revolution, and when the first tidings of the fall of James reached New England she was prepared to accept them with all their consequences. Unfortunately for Andros he was in Boston at this critical moment, and Boston was ready to act with her wonted vigor. The Governor was summoned to surrender his authority, and refusing, was thrown into prison. Massachusetts made haste to reÖrganize her government, but her charter was gone.