Chapter II: New England, 1689-1763 (4)

While Hutchinson’s continuation of the story beyond 1749 was as yet unknown, George Richards Minot planned to take up the narrative and carry it on. Minot’s _Continuation of the History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1748_ shows that he made use of the files in the state house as well as their condition then permitted, but he was conscious of the assistance which he might have had, and did not possess, from the papers in the English archives. His first volume was printed in 1798; and he died before his second volume was published, in 1803, which had brought the record down to 1765, but stopped abruptly.[349] Grahame (iii. 446) calls the work “creditable to the sense and talent of its author,” but considers “his style frequently careless, and even slovenly and ungrammatical.” His contemporaries viewed his literary manner much more favorably, and were inclined to give him a considerable share in placing our native historical literature upon a scholarly basis. More painstaking research, with a careful recording of authorities, characterizes the only other _History of Massachusetts_ of importance, that by John S. Barry, whose second volume is given to the period now under consideration,—a work, however, destitute of commensurate literary skill, or its abundant learning would give it greater reputation. Haliburton, in chapters 2 and 3 of book iii. of _The Rule and Misrule of the English in America_, traces in a summary way the turbulent politics of the province of Massachusetts during its long struggle against the royal prerogative. Emory Washburn’s _Sketches of the judicial history of Massachusetts from 1630 to the revolution in 1775_, Boston, 1840, contains biographical notices of the judges of Massachusetts, and traces the relations of the study of the law to the progress of political events. William Henry Whitmore’s _Massachusetts civil list for the colonial and provincial records, 1630-1774_, Albany, 1870, is a list of the names and dates of appointment of all the civil officers constituted by authority of the charters or the local government. The general histories of Maine (during this period a part of Massachusetts) have been sufficiently characterized in another place.[350]

CONNECTICUT.—The _History of Connecticut_, by Benjamin Trumbull, becomes not of less value as it approaches his own time. Grahame (ii. 165) says of him that he is “always distinguished by the accuracy of his statements, but not less distinguished by his partiality for his own people,” and Palfrey (iv. 226) avers that with all “his gravity Trumbull had a tendency for sensational traditions,” and both are right. He had not brought the story down later than 1713, in the volume published at Hartford in 1797. He says that he availed himself of the material which the ancient ministers and other principal gentlemen of Connecticut had communicated to Thomas Prince, when that writer was engaged upon his _Chronological Hist. of New England_; and in this collection, he adds, “important information was found, which could have been obtained from no other source.” Trumbull’s first volume was reprinted at New Haven in 1818, with a portrait of the author, together with a second volume, bringing the story down to 1764.

RHODE ISLAND.—Of Rhode Island in the present period, Arnold’s _History_ is the foremost modern authority.[351] Mr. William E. Foster has recently prepared, as no. 9 of the _Rhode Island Historical Tracts_ (1884), a careful and well-annotated study of the political history of the eighteenth century, in a _Memoir of Stephen Hopkins_.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.—Dr. Belknap, as the principal historian of New Hampshire, has been characterized in another place.[352] The bibliography of his history may find record here. The first volume, _The History of New Hampshire, vol. i., comprehending ... one complete century from the discovery of the Pascataqua_, was read through the press in Philadelphia (1784) by Ebenezer Hazard.[353] This volume was reprinted at Boston in 1792, where meanwhile vol. ii. (1715-1790) had appeared in 1781, and vol. iii., embracing a geographical description, was issued in 1792. The imprints of these volumes vary somewhat.[354] There was printed at Dover, N. H., in 1812 (some copies have “Boston, 1813”) a second edition in three volumes, “with large additions and improvements published from the author’s last manuscript;” but this assertion is not borne out by the book itself.[355] A copy of his original edition having such amendments by Belknap had been used in 1810, at Dover, in printing an edition which was never completed, as the copy and what had been done in type were burned. Before parting with this corrected copy, the representatives of Dr. Belknap had transferred his memoranda to another copy, and this last copy is the one referred to in the edition which was printed by John Farmer at Dover in 1831, called _The History of New Hampshire by Jeremy Belknap, from a copy of the original edition having the author’s last corrections, to which are added notes containing various corrections and illustrations. By John Farmer._[356] This is called vol. i., and contains the historical narrative, but does not include the geographical portion (vol. iii. of the original ed.), which Farmer never added to the publication.[357] Belknap says that he had been educated under the influence of Thomas Prince, and that he had used Prince’s library before it had been despoiled during the Revolution. Of Hutchinson—and Belknap was in early manhood before Hutchinson left New England—he says that while that historian writes many things regarding New Hampshire which Neal and Douglass have omitted, he himself omits others, which he did not think it proper to relate. He refers to Mr. Fitch, of Portsmouth, as having begun to collect notes on New Hampshire history as early as 1728, and says that he had found in Fitch’s papers some things not elsewhere obtainable. He also animadverts on errors into which Chalmers had fallen in his _Political Annals of the American Colonies_.

EDITORIAL NOTES.

=A.= THE DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND.—After the lapsing of the New England Confederacy consequent upon the charter of William and Mary, the governments which made up that group of colonies had no collective archives. It is only as we search the archives of the English Public Record Office, and those of Paris and Canada, including Nova Scotia, that we find those governments treated collectively. The _Reports_ of the English Historical Manuscripts Commission have of late years not only thrown additional light on our colonial history, as papers touching it preserved in the muniment rooms of leading families have been calendared, but the commission’s labors have also been the incentive by which the public depositary of records has been enriched by the transfer of many papers, which the commission has examined. Nine of their voluminous reports (up to 1885) have been printed, and by their indexes clues have been provided to the documents about New England history. The _Shelburne Papers_, belonging to the Marquis of Lansdowne, which make a large part of the _Fifth Report_, while of most interest in connection with the American Revolution, reveal not a little concerning the colonial history of the earlier part of the seventeenth century. The volumes enumerated in this _Report_, which are marked xlv. (1705-1724) and xlvi. (1686-1766), are of particular interest, referring entirely to the American colonies. We find here various papers of the Board of Trade and Plantations (or copies of them), embracing the replies from the provincial governors to their inquiries. In the volume numbered lxi., there are sundry reports of the attorney and solicitor-general, to whom had been referred the appeals of Massachusetts in 1699, and of Connecticut in 1701; his report of 1705 respecting Jesuits and papists in the plantations; that of 1707 on the acts of Massachusetts fining those trading with the French; that of 1710 on the reservation of trees in Massachusetts for masts of the royal navy; that of 1716 on the claim of the governor of Massachusetts to command the militia of Rhode Island; that of 1720 on the negative of the governor reserved in the charter of Massachusetts; that of 1722 on the question of the time when the three years that a province law is open to disapproval properly begins; that of 1725 on the encroachments of the House of Representatives on the prerogative of the Crown; that of 1732 relating to the validity of acts in Rhode Island, notwithstanding the governor’s dissent,—not to name many others.

Another source of documentary help is the manuscripts of the British Museum, of which there are printed catalogues; and the enumeration of the documents in the possession of the Canadian government,—of which the quality can be judged, as they existed in 1858,—in the _Catalogue of the Library of Parliament_, Toronto, 1858, pp. 1541-1655.

* * * * *

The archives of Massachusetts are probably not surpassed in richness by those of any other of the English colonies. The solicitude which the colonial and provincial government always felt for their preservation is set forth by Dr. George H. Moore in appendix v. of his _Final notes on Witchcraft_ (New York, 1885). In 1821, Alden Bradford, then secretary of the commonwealth, made a printed statement of “the public records and documents belonging to the commonwealth” (pp. 19), but the fullest enumeration of them was included in a _Report to the Legislature of Massachusetts, made by the Commissioners ... upon the condition of the records, files, papers, and documents in the Secretary’s department, Jan., 1885_ (pp. 42), drawn up by the present writer. An indication of such of them as concern the period of the present volume may be desirable.[358] The series of bound volumes, arranged in 1836-46, by the Rev. Joseph B. Felt, according to a classification which was neither judicious nor uniform, but, as Dr. Palfrey says, betrays “ingenious disorder,”[359] includes not all, but the chief part of the papers illustrative of legislation in the secretary’s office which concern us in the present chapter and make part of one hundred and thirty-one volumes. These come in sequence through vol. 136,—the omitted volumes being no. 107 (the revolution of 1689) and nos. 126 to 129 (the usurpation of the Andros period). The other volumes as a rule begin in the colonial period and come down to about the beginning of the Revolutionary War. They are enumerated with their topical characteristics in the _Report_ already referred to (pp. 8, 9). Four volumes of ancient plans, grants, etc. (1643-1783), accompany the series.

Of the so-called _French Archives_—documents copied in France—mention has been elsewhere made, and a considerable portion of them cover the period now under examination.[360]

The destruction of the town and court house in 1747 carried with it the loss of many of the original records of the colony and province. The government had already undertaken a transcript of the records of the General Court, which had been completed down to 1737; and this copy, being at the house of Secretary Josiah Willard, was saved. A third copy was made from this, and it is this duplicate character which attaches to the records as we now have them. Transcripts of these records under the charter of William and Mary had by its provisions been sent to the Lords of Trade, session by session, and orders were at once given to secure these from 1737 to 1746, or a copy of them, for the province archives. For some reason this was not accomplished till 1845, when a commissioner was sent to England for that purpose; and these years (1737-1746) are thus preserved. None of these records for the provincial period have been printed.[361] The records of the upper branch or the council were also burned,[362] and were in a similar way restored from England. Of the House of Representatives, or lower branch, we have no legislative records before 1714, nor of the legislative action of either branch have we any complete record before 1714, since neither the journals of the House nor the legislative part of the records of the council were sent over to England, but only the executive part of the latter, which was apparently made up in view of such transmission, as Moore represents. The preservation of the journals of the House is due to the jealousy which that body felt of Dudley when he prorogued them in 1715. Because of their inaction on the paper-money question, the House, in a moment of indignation, and to show that they had done something, if not what the governor liked, voted to have their daily records printed. The set of these printed journals in the possession of the State is defective.[363] There is not known to be a perfect set of them in any collection, perhaps not in all the collections in the state, says Judge Chamberlain,[364] who adds: “Of their value for historical purposes I have formed a very high opinion. In many respects they are of more value than the journals of the General Court, which show results; while the journals of the House disclose the temper of the popular branch, and give the history of many abortive projects which never reached the journals of the General Court.”[365] Of a series of copies called charters, commissions, and proclamations, the second volume (1677-1774) concerns the present inquiry. There is a file of bound letters beginning in 1701, and it would seem they are copies in some, perhaps many, cases of originals in the archives as arranged by Mr. Felt.

Respecting the French and Indian wars, nine volumes of the so-called _Massachusetts Archives_ cover muster-rolls from 1710 to 1774, including the regiments of Sir Chas. Hobby and others (1710), the frontier garrisons, those of Annapolis Royal (1710-11), the expedition to the West Indies (1740), the campaigns of Crown Point, Fort William Henry, and Louisbourg (1758), beside various eastern expeditions and the service by sea. Of the first Louisbourg (1745) expedition, there are no rolls, except as made up in copies from the Pepperrell and Belknap papers in the library of the Mass. Historical Society. In addition to these bound papers there are many others in packages, laid aside by Mr. Felt in his labor, in some cases for reasons, and in other cases by oversight or a varying sense of choice.[366]

The _Colonial Records_ of Connecticut for the present period have come under the supervision of Mr. C. J. Hoadly, and are carefully edited. In 1849 about 50,000 documents in the state archives had been bound in 138 volumes, when an index was made to them.[367] The correspondence of the Connecticut authorities with the home government (1755-58) has been printed in the _Connecticut Historical Collections_ (vol. i. p. 257).

For Rhode Island, the continuation of the _Colonial Records_, beginning with vol. iii., covers the period now under consideration. The sessional papers of 1691-95, however, are wanting, and were probably sent to England by Bellomont, whence copies of those for May and June, 1691, were procured for the Carter-Brown library. Newport at this time was a leading community in maritime affairs, and the papers of these years touch many matters respecting pirates and privateers. The fifth volume (1741-56) indicates how Rhode Island at that time kept at sea more ships than any other colony, how she took part in the Spanish war, and how reckless her assembly was in the authorizing of paper money. The sixth volume (1757-69) closes the provincial period.

The series of publications of New Hampshire ordinarily referred to as _Provincial Papers_, from the leading series of documents in what is more properly called _Documents and records relating to New Hampshire_, is more helpful in the present period than in the earlier one.[368] They may be supplemented by the Shute and Wentworth correspondence (1742-53), and Wentworth’s correspondence with the ministry (1750-60); and letters of Joseph Dudley and others, contained in the Belknap MSS. in the cabinet of the Mass. Historical Society.[369] The _Granite Monthly_ (vol. v. 391) has published a list of the issues of the press in New Hampshire from 1756 to 1773; and B. H. Hall’s _History of Eastern Vermont, from its earliest settlement to the close of the eighteenth century_, with a biographical chapter and appendixes (2 vols., Albany, N. Y., 1858, and on large paper in 1865), supplements the story as regards the claim of New Hampshire to the so-called New Hampshire grants.

* * * * *

The legislative and judicial methods of the several governments are of the first importance to the understanding of New England history, for it was a slow process by which it came to pass that professional lawyers held any shaping hand in the making or the administering of laws. The first Superior Court of Massachusetts under the provincial charter had not a single trained lawyer on the bench, and its assembly was equipped more with persistency and shrewdness in working out its struggle with the crown officer who tried to rule them than with legal acquirements. E. G. Scott, in his _Development of Constitutional Liberty in the English Colonies_ (N. Y., 1882, pp. 31-58), examines the forms of the colonial governments and the political relations of the colonies. No one has better traced their relations to European politics than Bancroft.

The legislation of the several governments has had special treatment in Emory Washburn’s _Sketches of the Judicial History of Massachusetts, 1630-1775_ (Boston, 1840); in T. Day’s _Historical Account of the Judiciary of Connecticut_ (Hartford, 1817); in John M. Shirley’s “Early Jurisprudence of New Hampshire,” in the New Hampshire Historical Society’s _Proceedings_, June 13, 1883. Cf. also H. C. Lodge, _Short Hist. of the English Colonies_, pp. 412-419.

Of the legislation of Massachusetts, Dr. Moore says[370] that it is “a record which, notwithstanding all its defects, has no parallel in any other American State.” The first edition of the Province Laws, under the new charter, was printed in 1699, and it was annually supplemented by those of the succeeding sessions till 1714, when a second edition was printed, to which an index was added in 1722, and various later editions were issued.[371] In 1869 the first volume of a new edition, of historical importance, was published by the State, with the title _Acts and Resolves, public and private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, with historical and explanatory notes, edited by Ellis Ames and Abner C. Goodell_. Mr. Ames has since died (1884), and the editing is still going on under Mr. Goodell; five volumes, coming down to 1780, having been so far published.[372]

=B.= MEN AND MANNERS.—Dr. George E. Ellis, in an address[373] which he delivered in October, 1884, on the occasion of erecting a tablet to Samuel Sewall’s memory in the new edifice of the Old South church, in Boston, of which that last of the puritans had been a member, said:—

“Judge Sewall is better known to us in both his outer and inner being than any other individual in our local history of two hundred and fifty years; and this is true not only of himself, but through his pen, curiously active, faithful, candid, kind, impartial, and ever just, his own times stand revealed and described to us. His surroundings and companions, his home and public life, the habits, usages, customs, and events, and even the food which we can almost smell and taste, the clothes, and furnishings, the modes of hospitality, of travel, the style of things,—all in infinite detail; the military service, the formal ceremonials and courtesies, the excitements, panics, disasters,—all these have come down to us through Sewall’s pen, with a fullness and old-time flavor and charm, which we might in vain seek to gather from many hundred volumes. And all this comes from Sewall having kept a daily journal from 1674 to 1729, fifty-five years,”—and forty of these years come within the scope of the present chapter.

These journals had long been known to exist in a branch of Sewall’s family, but as, Dr. Ellis says, they “had been kept with much reserve, sparingly yielding to earnest inquirers the information they were known to contain.” President Quincy had drawn from them in his _History of Harvard University_, and had called them “curious and graphic,” as his extracts show. They had also been used by Holmes in his _American Annals_, by Washburn in his _Judicial History of Mass._, and by others. In 1868, some friends of the Mass. Historical Society purchased the diaries and other Sewall papers of the holders, and gave them to the society.[374] The diaries have since been published, and make part of the _Collections_ of that society.[375] Despite a good deal of a somewhat ridiculous conservatism, linked with a surprising pettiness in some ways, the character of Sewall is impressed upon the present generation in a way to do him honor. His was a struggle to uphold declining puritanism, and the contrasts presented by the viceroyalty of New England at that time to one who was bred under the first charter must have been trying to Christian virtues, even were they such as Sewall possessed.[376] Dr. Ellis has pointed out[377] how universally kindly Sewall was in what he recorded of those with whom he came in contact. “There are no grudges, no animosities, no malice, no bitter musings, no aggravating reproaches of those—some very near him—who caused him loss and grief, but ever efforts to reconcile, by forbearance, remonstrance, and forgiveness.” All this may be truly said, and afford a contrast to what the private diaries of his contemporaries, the two Mathers, would prompt us to say of their daily records. Those who are more considerate of the good names of those divines than they were themselves have thus far prevented the publication of these diaries. Dr. Ellis[378] says of them:—

“The diaries of Increase and Cotton Mather are extant, but only extracts of them have been printed. Much in them is wisely suppressed. Increase, though a most faithful, devoted, and eminently serviceable man, was morbid, censorious sometimes, and suffered as if unappreciated. The younger Mather was often jealous, spiteful, rancorous, and revengeful in his daily records, and thus the estimate of his general worth is so far reduced through materials furnished by himself.”[379]

There is among the Sparks manuscripts in Harvard College library a bound quarto volume which is superscribed as follows: “To Mr. Samuel Savile, of Currier’s Hall, London, attorney-at-law: Dear friend,—I here present you with an abstracted Historical Account of that part of America called New England; to which I have added the History of our voiage thereto, Anno Domini, 1740.” This account presents one of the best pictures of New England life, particularly of that in Boston, from a contemporary pen.[380] There are various other diaries of lookers-on, which are helpful in this study of New England provincial life, like the journals of Whitefield, the diary of Francis Goelet,[381] the journal of Madam Knight’s journey, 1704,[382]—not to name others. Among published personal records, there are George Keith’s _Journal of Travels from New Hampshire to Caratuck_ (London, 1706); Capt. Nathaniel Uring’s _Voyages and Travels_, published at London in 1727;[383] and Andrew Burnaby’s _Travels through the middle settlements in North America in the years 1759 and 1760_, London, 1775.[384] Burnaby passed on his way, from Bristol through Providence to Boston. The early part of the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is of exceptional value as a reflex of the life of New England as it impressed a young man.[385]

Among the modern treatises on the social condition of New England, a chief place must be given to Henry Cabot Lodge’s _Short History of the English Colonies_, the chapters in which on the characteristics of the colonies and their life are the essential feature of a book whose title is made good by a somewhat unnecessary abridgment of the colonies’ anterior history. Lodge groups his facts by colonies. Dr. Edward Eggleston in some valuable papers, which are still appearing in the _Century Magazine_, groups similar, but often much minuter, facts by their topical rather than by their colonial relations. Mr. Horace E. Scudder prepared an eclectic presentation of the subject in a little volume, _Men and Manners a hundred years ago_ (N. Y., 1876), which surveys all the colonies. The Rev. Jos. B. Felt’s _Customs of New England_ (1853) has a topical arrangement.[386]

For Massachusetts in particular, most of the local histories[387] contribute something to the subject; and in the _Memorial History of Boston_ there are various chapters which are useful,[388] and a survey is also given in Barry’s _Massachusetts_ (vol. ii. ch. I).

“He that will understand,” says Bancroft,[389] “the political character of New England in the eighteenth century must study the constitution of its towns, its congregations, its schools, and its militia.”[390]

=C.= FINANCE AND REVENUE.—Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull in a pamphlet, _First Essays at Banking and the first paper money in New England_ (Worcester, 1884,—from the Council Report of the American Antiquarian Society, Oct., 1884), traces more fully than has been done by Jos. B. Felt, in his _Historical account of Massachusetts Currency_ (Boston, 1839), and by Paine in the Council Report of the same society, April, 1866,[391] the efforts at private banking previous to the province issue of bills in 1690, and with particular reference to a tract, which he ascribes to the Rev. John Woodbridge, of Newbury, called _Severals relating to the fund, printed for divers reasons as may appear_ (Boston, probably 1681-82).[392] Dr. Trumbull attributes to Cotton Mather a paper sustaining the policy of issuing paper bills in 1690, which was published as _Some considerations on the Bills of Credit now passing in New England_ (Boston, 1691),[393] to which was appended _Some additional considerations_, which the same writer thinks may have been the work of John Blackwell, who had been the projector of a private bank authorized in 1689. Similar views as there expressed are adopted by Mather in his _Life of Phips_, as printed separately in 1697, and as later included in the _Magnalia_.

In Dec., 1690, the bills of the £7,000 which were first authorized began to be put forth. Felt (p. 50) gives the style of them, and though an engraved form was adopted some of the earliest of the issues were written with a pen, as shown by the fac-simile of one in the _Proceedings_ of the Massachusetts Hist. Soc. (1863, p. 428). Up to 1702 there had been emissions and repetitions of emissions of about £110,000, when another £10,000 was put out. A fac-simile of one of these notes is given in Smith’s _Hist. and Literary Curiosities_, p. xlv. The issues for the next few years were as follows: 1706, £10,000; 1707, £22,000; 1708, £10,000; 1709, £60,000; 1710, £40,000; 1711, £65,000,—a total of £207,000.

In the following year (1712), the province bills of Massachusetts were made legal tender,[394] but the break had come. The public confidence was shaken, and their decline in value rapidly increased under the apprehension, which the repeated putting off of the term of redemption engendered.

In Connecticut the management was more prudent. She issued in the end £33,500, but all her bills were redeemed with scarce any depreciation. A fac-simile of one of her three-shilling bills (1709) is given in the _Connecticut Colony Records_, 1706-1716, p. 111.[395]

Rhode Island managed her issues wildly. The history of her financial recklessness, by E. R. Potter, was published in 1837, and reprinted by Henry Phillips, Jr., in his _Historical Sketches_, etc. This paper as enlarged by S. S. Rider in 1880, constitutes no. viii. of the _Rhode Island Historical Tracts_, under the title of _Bills of Credit and Paper Money of Rhode Island, 1710-1786_, with twenty fac-similes of early bills. In 1741 Gov. Ward made an official report to the Lords Commissioners of Trade, rehearsing the history of the Rhode Island issues from 1710 to 1740, and this report, with other documents relating to the paper money of that colony, is in the _Rhode Island Col. Records_, vol. v. (1741-56).

Towards the end of Dudley’s time in Massachusetts, the party lines became sharply drawn on questions of financial policy. The downfall of credit alarmed the rich and conservative. The active business men, not many in numbers, but strong in influence, found a flow of paper money helpful in making the capital of the rich and the labor of the poor subserve their interests, as Hildreth says. There were those who supposed some amelioration would come from banks, private and public, and the press teemed with pamphlets.[396] The aggressive policy was formulated in _A Projection for erecting a Bank of Credit in Boston, New England, founded on Land Security_, in 1714.[397] Its abettors endeavored to promote subscriptions by appealing to the friends of education, in a promise to devote £200 per annum to the advantage of Harvard College.[398]

The small minority of hard-money men cast in their lot with the advocates of a public bank as the lesser evil of the two.

Gov. Dudley was no favorer of the Land-bank scheme[399] and his son, Paul Dudley, attacked it in a pamphlet, _Objections to the Bank of Credit lately projected at Boston_[400] (Oct., 1714), to which an answer came in Dec., from Samuel Lynde and other upholders, called _A Vindication of the Bank of Credit_.[401] “Of nearly thirty pamphlets and tracts, printed from 1714 to 1721,[402] for or against a private bank or a public bank,” says Dr. Trumbull,[403] “that of Dudley was the first, and is in some respects the ablest;” but he places foremost among the advocates of the scheme the author of _A Word of Comfort to a Melancholy Country_ (Boston, 1721), purporting to be by “Amicus Patriæ,” or, as Trumbull thinks (p. 40) there is little doubt, by the famous Rev. John Wise, of Chebacco. (Cf. _Brinley Catal._, i. nos. 1,442-45.)

To forestall the action of the private bank, the province, by a law, issued £50,000 to be let out on mortgages of real estate, and these bills were in circulation for over thirty years, and the assembly took other action to prevent the Land-bank scheme being operative. The subsequent emissions of paper money can be traced in Felt, who also cites the contemporary tracts, ranged upon opposite sides, and supporting on the one hand the conservative views of the Council, and on the other the heedless precipitancy of the House. One of these, _The Distressed state of the town of Boston considered ... in a letter from a gentleman to his friend in the country_ (1720), excited the attention of the council as embodying reflections on the acts of the government.[404]

In 1722 bills of as small a denomination as one, two, and three pennies[405] were ordered, to provide small change, which had become scarce.

The financial situation was rapidly growing worse. In 1710 an ounce of silver was worth eight shillings in paper, and in 1727 it had risen to seventeen shillings; and at this time, or near it (1728), there was afloat about £314,000 of this paper of Massachusetts indebtedness, to say nothing of a similar circulation issued by the other colonies, that of Rhode Island showing a much greater depreciation.[406] The fall in value was still increasing when in 1731 there were plans of bringing gold and silver into the country for a medium of trade;[407] but naturally the needy mercantile class opposed it. Thomas Hutchinson early (1737-38) distinguished himself in the assembly as a consistent opposer of paper money, and in 1740 he tried to push a scheme to hire in England 220,000 ounces of gold to meet the province bills, but he had little success. Another[408] scheme, however, flourished for a while; and this was one reviving the old name of the Land-bank, though sometimes called “Manufactory bank,” a bill for which was set afoot by Mr. John Colman, a needy Boston merchant, as Hutchinson calls him. Its principal feature consisted in securing the issues of the bank by a mortgage on the real estate of each associate to the extent of his subscription. It found its support in the small traders and the people of the rural districts, and was sustained in general by the House of Representatives. The leading and well-to-do merchants opposed it, and set up what was called a “Silver Scheme,”—an issue of notes to be redeemed in silver after the lapse of ten years.[409] “Mr. Hutchinson,” as this gentleman himself records, “favored neither, but considered the silver plan as without fraudulent purpose, which he did not think could be the case with the Land-bank.”[410]

From an original bill in an illustrated copy of _Historical Sketches of the Paper Currency of the American Colonies, by Henry Phillips, Jr._, Roxbury, 1865,—in Harvard College library.

In 1733, Boston instructed its treasurer to refuse the bills of the new emission of Rhode Island. (_Records_, 1729-42, p. 53.)]

The favoring and the opposing of the popular measure of the Land-bank drew lines sharply in the current political contests. The governor was suspected of double dealing, and while he was believed to be personally interested in it, he carried out openly the opposition which the Board of Trade instructed him to pursue: rejected the speaker and committees of the House, who were urging its progress, and displaced justices and militia officers of that way of thinking. All the while rumors of riot began to prevail, but they were not sufficient to coerce the government in a relaxation of their opposition; and the governor on his side carried espionage to a degree which was novel. It is said that something over £50,000 of the bank’s bills actually got out; but some one discovered that an old act of Parliament, which came of the explosion of the South Sea company, held each partner responsible, and nothing else was needed to push the adventure out of existence.[411]

Felt gives the main points in the development of this financial scheme, but here as elsewhere his book is a mere conglomerate of ill-digested items, referring largely to the five volumes (c.-civ.) of the _Mass. Archives,_ marked “Pecuniary,” which cover the monetary movements in Massachusetts between 1629 and 1775. Among the _Shelburne Papers_, vol. 61,[412] there appears a report of the attorney general to the Lords of Trade on this scheme of erecting a Land-bank in Boston, dated Nov. 10, 1735.

From an original bill in the Harvard College copy of Phillips’ _Hist. Sketches_.]

A leading combatant in the wordy conflict which followed was the Scotch physician, William Douglass, then living in Boston. His first publication was _Some observations on the scheme projected for emitting £60,000 in bills of a new tenor to be redeemed with silver and gold_, Boston, 1738.[413] In the same year he published without date, _An Essay concerning silver and paper currencies, more especially with regard to the British colonies in New England_, Boston.[414] He next printed in London in 1739 a _Discourse concerning the currencies of the British plantations in America, especially with regard to their paper money, more particularly in relation to Massachusetts_.[415]

From an original bill in the Harvard College copy of Phillips’ _Hist. Sketches of Paper Currency_. Fac-similes of bills of 1727 and 1742 are given in Smith’s _Lit. and Hist. Curiosities_, p. liii. Cf. also Potter’s _Manchester_.]

From an original bill in the Harvard College copy of Phillips’ _Hist. Sketches_. There is a fac-simile of a N. H. bill of forty shillings in Gay’s _Pop. Hist. U. S._, iii. p. 133; and one of a bill of 1742-43 in Cassell’s _Hist. United States_, i. p. 486.]

A fortunate plan for withdrawing the debased paper currency of Massachusetts Bay was finally matured.[416] Though the taking of Louisbourg had severely taxed the colony with a financial burden, the loss of it by treaty now made the way clear to throw off the same burden. William Bollan, the son-in-law of Shirley, had gone over after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle to represent how the sacrifices of New England deserved more recognition than was seemingly paid them in the surrender of her conquest. This and other reasons prevailed, and the government agreed to reimburse the province for the cost of the siege. This was reckoned on the new basis of paper money. Shirley in 1743 had been allowed to give his assent to an issue called “new tenor,” in which the value to silver was about ten times as great as the enormous flood of issues then in circulation bore, and these last were now known as “old tenor.” On this new basis Louisbourg had cost £261,700, which was held to be equivalent to £183,600 in London, the pound sterling equalling now about 30 shillings of the new tenor, and £11 of the old.[417] This agreement had been reached in 1749,[418] and the specie was shipped to Boston. Two hundred and seventeen chests of Spanish dollars and a hundred casks of copper coin were carted up King Street, in September, the harbinger of new prosperity. It was due most to Thomas Hutchinson’s skilful urgency that the assembly, of which he was now speaker, was induced to devote this specie to the redeeming of the paper bills of the “old tenor,” of which £2,000,000 were in circulation.[419] It was agreed to pay about one pound in specie for ten in paper, and the commissioners closed their labors in 1751, the silver and copper already mentioned paying nine tenths of it, while a tax was laid to pay the remaining tenth. About £1,800,000 in current bills were presented; the rest had been destroyed or hid away and forgotten.[420] Rhode Island had received £6,322 as her share of the whole; but as she was not wise enough to apply it to the bettering of her currency, she suffered the evils of a depreciated paper longer than her neighbors.[421] The same lack of wisdom governed New Hampshire. Connecticut had always been conservative in her monetary practices.

When the Massachusetts Assembly, in 1754, sought to raise money for the expenses of the war then impending, its debate upon an inquisitorial excise bill levying a tax on wines and liquors incited violent opposition. Samuel Cooper launched at the plan a pamphlet called _The Crisis_.[422] Another brief attack appeared with nothing on the title but _The Eclipse, MDCCLIV._[423] Daniel Fowle, however, was accused of printing another satirical account of the Representatives’ proceedings, which was published in 1754 as _The Monster of Monsters_, and the “Thomas Thumb, Esq.,” of the title is supposed to have shielded Samuel Waterhouse. Fowle was arrested, and the common hangman was directed to burn the pamphlet in King Street.[424] Sabin says that not more than three or four copies of the tract escaped, but the _Brinley Catalogue_ shows two.[425] After his release Fowle printed in Boston the next year (1755) _A total Eclipse of Liberty. Being a true and faithful account of the arraignment and examination of Daniel Fowle before the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay, Oct. 24, 1754, barely on suspicion of being concerned in printing and publishing a pamphlet, entitled The Monster of Monsters. Written by himself._ An _Appendix to the late Total Eclipse_, etc., appeared in 1756.[426]

In May, 1755, a stamp act went into operation in the province, by which the Representatives had established duties upon vellum, parchment, and paper for two years. It yielded towards defraying the charges of the government about £1,350 for the years in question.[427] Shirley issued a proclamation of its conditions, one of which is in the Boston Public Library, and has been reprinted in its _Bulletin_, 1884, p. 163.

=D.= THE BOUNDS OF THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES.—During the provincial period, the external limits and internal divisions of New England were the subject of disagreement. The question as to what constituted the frontier line towards Acadia was constantly in dispute, as is explained elsewhere.[428]

On the western side New York had begun by claiming jurisdiction as far as the Connecticut River. She relinquished this claim in the main, as to her bounds on Connecticut, when that colony pressed her pretensions to a line which ran a score of miles from the Hudson, and when she occupied the territory with her settlers, the final adjustment being reached in 1731.[429]

On the line of Massachusetts the controversy with New York lasted longer. The claim of that province was set forth in a _Report_ made in 1753, which is printed in Smith’s _New York_ (1814 ed., p. 283), and Smith adds that the government of Massachusetts never exhibited the reasons of its claim in answer to this report, but in the spring of 1755 sold lands within the disputed territory.[430] In 1764 the matter was again in controversy. Thomas Hutchinson is thought to have been the author of the Massachusetts argument called _The Case of the Provinces of Massachusetts Bay and New York, respecting boundary line between the two provinces_ (Boston, 1764).[431] Three years later (1767) a meeting of the agents of the two provinces was held at New Haven, by which the disagreement was brought to a conclusion.[432]

For the region north of Massachusetts New York contended more vigorously, and the dispute over the New Hampshire grants in the territory of the present Vermont, which began in 1749, was continued into the Revolutionary period. When, in 1740, the king in council had established the northern line of Massachusetts, the commission of Gov. Benning Wentworth, of New Hampshire, the next year (1741), extended his jurisdiction westward until it met other grants, which he interpreted to mean till it reached a line stretched northerly in prolongation of the westerly boundary of Massachusetts, twenty miles east of the Hudson, and reaching to the southern extremity of Lake Champlain. On the 3d of Jan., 1749, Wentworth made a grant of the town of Bennington, adjacent to such western frontier line. These and other grants of townships which Wentworth made became known as the New Hampshire Grants.[433] The wars prevented much progress in the settlement of these grants, but some of the settlers who were there when the French war closed assembled, it is said, with the Rev. Samuel Peters in 1763 on Mount Pisgah, and broke a bottle of spirits with him, and named the country _Verd Mont_.

Gov. Colden, of New York, on Dec. 28, 1763, issued a proclamation claiming the land thus held under the grants of Wentworth, basing his rights on the grants in 1664 and 1674 to the Duke of York of “all lands from the west side of the Connecticut River to the east side of the Delaware Bay.” On the 20th July, 1764, the king in council confirmed Colden’s view, and made the Connecticut River the boundary as far as 45° north latitude. When this decision reached Wentworth he had already granted 128 townships. New York began to make counter-grants of the same land, and though the king ordered the authorities of New York to desist, when word reached London of the rising conflict, it was the angry people of the grants rather than the royal will which induced the agents of New York to leave the territory. Gov. John Wentworth continued to make grants till the Revolution, on the New Hampshire side; but though Gov. Moore, of New York, had been restrained (1767), his successors had not the same fear of the royal displeasure. As the war approached, the dispute between New York and the grants grew warmer.[434] In 1773 James Duane, it is thought, was the champion of the New York cause in two pamphlets: _A State of the rights of the Colony of New York with respect to its eastern boundary on Connecticut River so far as concerns the late encroachments under the Government of New Hampshire_, published by the assembly (New York, 1773); and _A Narrative of the proceedings subsequent to the Royal Adjudication concerning the lands to the westward of Connecticut river, lately usurped by New Hampshire_ (New York, 1773).[435] The next year (1774) Ethan Allen answered the first of these tracts in his _Brief narrative of the proceedings of the government of New York_. Allen dated at Bennington, Sept. 23, 1774, and his book was published at Hartford.[436]

The war of independence soon gave opportunity for the British authorities on the Canada side to seek to detach the Vermonters from their relations to the revolting colonies.[437] The last of the royal governors of New Hampshire had fled in Sept., 1775, and a congress at Exeter had assumed executive control in Jan., 1776. The next year (1777) a convention framed a constitution, and by a stretch of power, as is told in Ira Allen’s _Hist. of Vermont_, it was adopted without recurrence to the people’s vote. In March, 1778, the state government was fully organized. The dispute with New York went on. Gov. Clinton issued a proclamation. Ethan Allen answered in an _Animadversary Address_ (Hartford, 1778),[438] and in Dec., 1778, a convention of the people of the grants was held, and their resolution was appended to a document prepared by a committee of the assembly, called _A public defence of the right of the New Hampshire grants (so called) on both sides Connecticut river, to associate together, and form themselves into an independent state. Containing remarks on sundry paragraphs of letters from the president of the Council of New Hampshire to his Excellency Governor Chittenden, and the New Hampshire delegates at Congress_.[439]

The same year the legislature of New York directed the preparation of a _Collection of evidence in vindication of the territorial rights and jurisdiction of the state of New York, against the claims of the commonwealth of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and the people of the grants who are commonly called Vermonters_. It was prepared by James Duane, James Morrin Scott, and Egbert Benson, and is printed in the _Fund Publications_ of the New York Historical Society, 1870 (pp. 277-528). On the other side, Ethan Allen published _A vindication of the opposition of the inhabitants of Vermont to the government of New York, and of their right to form an independent state_;[440] and in 1780, in connection with Jonas Fay, and by order of the governor and council, he published _A concise refutation of the claims of New Hampshire and Massachusetts Bay, to the territory of Vermont; with occasional remarks on the long disputed claim of New York to the same_.[441]

In 1782, Ethan Allen again brought out at Hartford his _The present state of the controversy between the states of New York and New Hampshire on the one part, and the state of Vermont on the other_.[442]

The arguments and proofs were rehearsed in 1784, when the question was to be presented to court, in a brief by James Duane, called _State of the evidence and argument in support of the territorial rights of jurisdiction of New York against the government of New Hampshire and the claimants under it, and against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts_. An amicable adjustment prevented the publication of this document, and it was first printed in the _N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll._ for 1871.[443]

Connecticut claimed certain lands in Northern Pennsylvania, which came within her jurisdiction by the extension of her lines, as expressed in her charter of 1662, westward to the South Sea. New York, being then in the possession of a Christian power, was excepted, but the claim was preserved farther west. In 1753 a company was formed to colonize these Connecticut lands in the Susquehanna valley, and lands were bought of the Indians at Wyoming. The government of Pennsylvania objected, and claimed the lands to be within the bounds of William Penn’s charter. (Cf. _Penna. Archives_, ii. 120, etc.) The defeat of Braddock checked the dispute, but in 1761 it was renewed. In 1763 the home government required the Connecticut people to desist, on the ground that they had not satisfied the Indian owners. New bargains were then made, and in 1769 settlements again took place. General Gage, as commander-in-chief of the British troops on the continent, refused to interfere. In 1774, William Smith prepared an _Examination of the Connecticut claim to lands in Pennsylvania, with an appendix and map_ (Philadelphia, 1774); and Benjamin Trumbull issued _A Plea in vindication of the Connecticut title to the contested lands west of the Province of New York_ (New Haven, 1774). See entries in the _Brinley Catalogue_, Nos. 2121, etc. The dispute was later referred to the Continental Congress, which in 1781 decided in favor of Pennsylvania, and Aug. 8, 1782, commissioners were appointed. (_Journals of Congress_, iv. 59, 64.) Connecticut still claimed west of Pennsylvania, and though she retained for a while the “Western Reserve,” she finally ceded (1796-1800) to the United States all her claims as far as the Mississippi.[444] The claims of Massachusetts, on similar grounds, to land in Michigan and Wisconsin were surrendered to the general government in 1785.

* * * * *

The original patent for the Massachusetts Company made its northern line three miles north of the Merrimac River. New Hampshire claimed that it should be run westerly from a point on the coast three miles north of the mouth of that river. When the Board of Trade, in 1737, selected a commission to adjudicate upon this claim, Massachusetts was not in favor, and New Hampshire got more than she asked, the line being run north of the river three miles, and parallel to it, till it reached the most southerly point of the river’s course, when it was continued due west.[445]

Respecting the boundaries on the side of Maine, there is a journal of Walter Bryent, who in 1741 ran the line between New Hampshire and York County in Maine.[446]

Massachusetts also lost territory in the south. The country of King Philip on the easterly side of Narragansett Bay had been claimed by Plymouth, and Massachusetts, by the union under the province charter, succeeded to the older colony’s claim. An arbitration in 1741 did not give all she claimed to Rhode Island, but it added the eastern towns along the bay.[447] On the frontiers of Connecticut, the towns of Enfield, Suffield, Somers, and Woodstock had been settled by Massachusetts, and by an agreement in 1713 she had included them in her jurisdiction.[448] In 1747, finding the taxes in Massachusetts burdensome from the expenses of the war, these towns applied to be received by Connecticut, and their wish was acceded to, while Massachusetts did not dare risk an appeal to the king in council.[449]

The disputes of Connecticut and Rhode Island respecting the Narragansett country resulted on that side in a loss to Connecticut.[450]

In an interesting paper on the “Origin of the names of towns in Massachusetts,” by William H. Whitmore, in the _Proceedings_ (xii. 393-419) of the Mass. Hist. Society, we can trace the loss of towns to Massachusetts, which she had incorporated, and find some reflection of political changes. Up to 1732 the names of towns were supplied by the petitioners, but after that date the incorporation was made in blank, the governor filling in the name, which may account for the large number of names of English peers and statesmen which were attached to Massachusetts towns during the provincial period. The largest class of the early names seems due to the names of the places in England whence their early settlers came. Prof. F. B. Dexter presented to the American Antiquarian Society, in April, 1885, a paper of similar character respecting the towns of Connecticut.

=E.= FORTS AND FRONTIER TOWNS OF NEW ENGLAND.—The large increase during recent years in the study of local history has greatly broadened the field of detail. As scarcely one of the older settlements to the west, north, and east escaped the horrors of the French and Indian wars, the student following out the minor phases must look into the histories of the towns of New England. Convenient finding-lists for these towns are the _Check-list of Amer. local history_, by F. B. Perkins; Colburn’s _Bibliog. of Massachusetts_; Bartlett’s _Bibliog. of Rhode Island_; and A. P. C. Griffin’s “Articles on American local history in Historical Collections, etc.,” now publishing in the _Boston Public Library Bulletin_.

For the Maine towns particular reference may be made to Cyrus Eaton’s _Thomaston, Rockland, and South Thomaston_ (1863), vol. i.; E. E. Bourne’s _Wells and Kennebunk_; Cushman’s _Ancient Sheepscot and Newcastle_; Willis’s _Portland_ (2d ed.); Folsom’s _Saco and Biddeford_; Eaton’s _Warren_ (2d ed.), which gives a map, marking the sites of the forts about the Georges River; Johnston’s _Bristol, Bremen, and Pemaquid_, which gives a map of the Damariscotta River and the Pemaquid region, with the settlements of 1751; R. K. Sewall’s _Ancient Dominions of Maine_; James W. North’s _Augusta_; G. A. and H. W. Wheeler’s _Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, including the ancient territory known as Pejepscot, Boston_, 1878 (ch. iv. and xxiii.).

See the present _History_ (Vol. III. p. 365) for notes on the local history of Maine, and (Ibid., p. 364) for references to the general historians,—Sullivan, whose want of perspicuousness Grahame (i. 253) complains of, and Williamson.

At the present Brunswick (Maine), Fort Andros had been built in 1688, and had been demolished in 1694. Capt. John Gyles erected there in August, 1715, a post which was called Fort George. Ruins of it were noticeable at the beginning of this century. There is a sketch of it in Wheeler’s _Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell_, pp. 624, 629.

The fort at St. Georges (Thomaston, Me.) had been built originally in 1719-20, to protect the Waldo patent; it was improved in 1740, and again in 1752 was considerably strengthened. (Williamson, i. 287.)

At Pemaquid, on the spot where Andros had established a post, Phips had built Fort William Henry in 1692, which had been surrendered by Chubb in 1696. It is described in Dummer’s _Defence of the New England Charters_, p. 31; Mather’s _Magnalia_, book viii. p. 81. In 1729 Col. David Dunbar erected a stone fort, perhaps on the same foundations, which was called Fort Frederick. There is a plan of the latter post in Johnston’s _Bristol, Bremen, and Pemaquid_, pp. 216, 264. Cf. Eaton’s _Warren_, 2d ed.