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AN ORIGINAL LETTER FROM DR. INCREASE MATHER, TO GOVER

Sir,

NOUR DUDLEY.

HAT I have had a singular respect for you, the Lord knows; but

That since your arrival to the government, my charitable expecta

tions have been greatly disappointed, I may not deny. Without any further preface or compliments, I think it my duty freely and faithfully to let you understand what my sad fears concerning you are.

1st. I am afraid you cannot clear yourself from the guilt of bribery and unrighteousness: For you to declare to Mr. Newton, that he should not do what his office as judge in the admiralty obliged him unto, unless he would give you an hundred pounds, was surely a sin of that nature. And for you not to consent that some, whose titles to their land the General Assembly had confirmed, should enjoy their right, except they would give you a sum of money, is unrighteousness. To deny men their right, except they will by some gift purchase it, is certainly the sin of bribery, let who will be guilty of it. These and other things Mr. Newton and Mr. Partridge have given their affidavits of; and I hear that many things of this nature will shortly be discovered: There is a scripture that makes me think it will be so. Numb. xxxii. 23.

2d. I am afraid that you have not been true to the interest of your country, as God (considering his marvellous dispensations towards you) and his people have expected from you. Sir H. Ashurst writes to me, that it would fill a quire of paper for him to give a full account of your contrivances to ruin your country, both this and the neighbour colony. Your son Paul's letter, dated January 12, 1703-4, to W. Wharton, scems to those that have read it, to be nothing short of a demonstration, that both of you have been contriving to destroy the charter privileges of the province; and to obtain a commission for a court of chancery, alias, a court of bribery. A gentleman in London gave ten pounds for that letter, that so his friends in New England might see what was plotting against them.

Sd. I am afraid that you cannot clear yourself from the guilt of much hypocrisy and falseness in the affair of the college. In 1686, when you accepted of an illegal arbitrary commission from the late K. James, you said, that the cow was dead, and therefore the calf in her belly; meaning the charter of the college and colony. You said (and truly

* In this class are included the nameless diseases of children.

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