was needed for the despotism which James II., and Andros his tool, desired to establish.

One of the first offensive steps of Andros was demanding the use of a "meeting-house" for the services of the Established Church. He was put off until Good Friday was approaching, when he demanded the use of the "Old South meeting-house." Despite the refusal which he met, the services were actually held there, and continued to be held, on Sundays and holidays. This the Governor considered a positive gain to his cause. He interferred with the freedom of the press, levied great taxes throughout the Colonies, and demanded heavy payments from owners of lands for new titles to them.

Connecticut refused to recognize the authority of Andros, and, after some fruitless negotiation, he went to Hartford, where, on the last day of October, 1687, he met the Governor and assistants, in order to assert his authority personally. It is said that the colonial charter was brought into the room during the conference. The lights were suddenly extinguished, and after they were lighted again, the charter was not to be found, Captain Joseph Wadsworth having in the brief interval taken it to a short distance, and hidden it in a hollow oak.* The next day the "annexation" was effected, the secretary closing the

*No contemporary writing alludes to the hiding of the charter in this way in the oak, but in May, 1715, a sum of money was granted to Captain Wadsworth, by the General Court, for “securing the duplicate charter in a very troublesome season, when our Constitution was struck at, and in safely keeping and preserving the same ever since unto this day," and the almost inevitable inference is, that the hiding of the charter is alluded to.

THE END OF ANDROS.

215

records of the General Court with a simple account of the circumstances and the word "Finis."

The "end" did not come immediately, however,

for the tyranny of Andros aroused so much indignation that, when the news of the landing of William of Orange, in England, reached Boston, the Governor was seized and thrown into prison, though the messenger who brought the information had been himself imprisoned by Andros, immediately upon his

arrival.

The tyrannical Governor under restraint, the people took the reins into their own hands, declaring that they committed their "enterprise to Him who hears the cries of the oppressed," and calling upon the other colonists to join in prayers, and "all just actions for the defence of the land." A General Court was elected and began its sessions in May, 1689, as under the old charter. Similar action was taken in Rhode Island, at Plymouth, and in Connecticut, the Colonial Charter was taken from its hidingplace, and new chapters were begun in the Public Records after the "finis" of 1687.* This was a Protestant revolution in England, and it was a grand movement in favor of Protestant liberty in America. Boston was its starting-place, but its influence was limited only by the extent of the Colonies. It was the last great revolution in England, and on our Continent it was the precursor of all the movements in favor of enfranchisement that have followed since.

*The Massachusetts Colony had eight Governors before the arrival of Andros, in 1686: John Winthrop, 1630-33, 1637-39, 1642-43, 1646-48; Thomas Dudley, 1634, 1640, 1645, 1650; John Haynes, 1635; Henry Vane, 1636; Richard Bellingham, 1641, 1654, 1665–72; John Endicott, 1644, 1649, 1651-53, 1655-64; John Leverett, 1663-78; Simon Bradstreet, 1679–86.

The Colony of Connecticut had also eight Governors from 1639 to 1687: To 1655, John Haynes and Edward Hopkins occupied the office (most of the time alternately), except that in 1642, George Wyllys was chosen for one year; in 1655, Thomas Wells was Governor, and again in 1658; John Webster followed in 1656; John Winthrop, in 1657, and serving after Thomas Wells, from 1659 to 1675; William Leete followed from 1676 to 1682; and Robert Treat, from 1683 to '87. The Colony of New Haven had but three Governors before its union with Connecticut: Theophilus Eaton, 1643-57; Francis Newman 1658-60; and William Lette, from 1661 to 1667.

CHAPTER XI.

LOOKING TOWARDS INDEPENDENCE.

BREAKING FLAX

I

T was now settled that not the French nor the Spanish, but the English should mould the destinies of the New World; but the settlers who had left their homes in the Mother-Country, had begun to feel that it would not always be theirs to look over seas for laws and government. Outside. observers had likewise seen, perhaps more clearly than the settlers themselves, that a separation would come in time between the Colonies

and England. In 1750, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, then prior of the Sorbonne at Paris, in an essay

*

on The Progress of the Human Mind, said, "Colonies are like fruits, which hold to the tree only until their

* It was this Turgot who inscribed under a portrait of Franklin, the epigram, "Eripuit cælo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis." (He snatched lightning from Heaven, and the sceptre from the tyrant. )

maturity; when sufficient for themselves, they do that which Carthage once did, that which some day America will do." Both Washington and Jefferson said that before 1775, they had never heard so much as a whisper of a desire to separate from the MotherCountry, and yet the Colonies were gradually learn

ing that there was strength for them in union, and that as their circumstances widely differed, so also their interests were not the same with those of England, and it was only necessary that they should have mutual grievances to bring them to make a common cause against her. *

*John Adams said, after peace had been declared, “There was not a moment during the Revolution, when I would not have given everything I possessed for a restoration to the state of things before the contest began, provided we could have had a sufficient security for its continuance." Mr. Madison said, that in his opinion the real object of every class of people in the war was the reëstablishment of the colonial relations as they had been before the trouble began, and that independence was sought only after this was despaired of.