There was once a time when New England groaned under the actual
pressure of heavier wrongs than those threatened ones which brought on
the Revolution. James II., the bigoted successor of Charles the
Voluptuous, had annulled the charters of all the colonies and sent a
harsh and unprincipled soldier to take away our liberties and endanger
our religion. The administration of Sir Edmund Andros lacked scarcely a
single characteristic of tyranny—a governor and council holding office
from the king and wholly independent of the country; laws made and
taxes levied without concurrence of the people, immediate or by their
representatives; the rights of private citizens violated and the titles
of all landed property declared void; the voice of complaint stifled by
restrictions on the press; and finally, disaffection overawed by the
first band of mercenary troops that ever marched on our free soil. For
two years our ancestors were kept in sullen submission by that filial
love which had invariably secured their allegiance to the
mother-country, whether its head chanced to be a Parliament, Protector
or popish monarch. Till these evil times, however, such allegiance had
been merely nominal, and the colonists had ruled themselves, enjoying
far more freedom than is even yet the privilege of the native subjects
of Great Britain.
At length a rumor reached our shores that the prince of Orange had
ventured on an enterprise the success of which would be the triumph of
civil and religious rights and the salvation of New England. It was but
a doubtful whisper; it might be false or the attempt might fail, and in
either case the man that stirred against King James would lose his
head. Still, the intelligence produced a marked effect. The people
smiled mysteriously in the streets and threw bold glances at their
oppressors, while far and wide there was a subdued and silent
agitation, as if the slightest signal would rouse the whole land from
its sluggish despondency. Aware of their danger, the rulers resolved to
avert it by an imposing display of strength, and perhaps to confirm
their despotism by yet harsher measures.
One afternoon in April, 1689, Sir Edmund Andros and his favorite
councillors, being warm with wine, assembled the red-coats of the
governor’s guard and made their appearance in the streets of Boston.
The sun was near setting when the march commenced. The roll of the drum
at that unquiet crisis seemed to go through the streets less as the
martial music of the soldiers than as a muster-call to the inhabitants
themselves. A multitude by various avenues assembled in King street,
which was destined to be the scene, nearly a century afterward, of
another encounter between the troops of Britain and a people struggling
against her tyranny.
Though more than sixty years had elapsed since the Pilgrims came, this
crowd of their descendants still showed the strong and sombre features
of their character perhaps more strikingly in such a stern emergency
than on happier occasions. There was the sober garb, the general
severity of mien, the gloomy but undismayed expression, the scriptural
forms of speech and the confidence in Heaven’s blessing on a righteous
cause which would have marked a band of the original Puritans when
threatened by some peril of the wilderness. Indeed, it was not yet time
for the old spirit to be extinct, since there were men in the street
that day who had worshipped there beneath the trees before a house was
reared to the God for whom they had become exiles. Old soldiers of the
Parliament were here, too, smiling grimly at the thought that their
aged arms might strike another blow against the house of Stuart. Here,
also, were the veterans of King Philip’s war, who had burned villages
and slaughtered young and old with pious fierceness while the godly
souls throughout the land were helping them with prayer. Several
ministers were scattered among the crowd, which, unlike all other mobs,
regarded them with such reverence as if there were sanctity in their
very garments. These holy men exerted their influence to quiet the
people, but not to disperse them.
Meantime, the purpose of the governor in disturbing the peace of the
town at a period when the slightest commotion might throw the country
into a ferment was almost the Universal subject of inquiry, and
variously explained.
“Satan will strike his master-stroke presently,” cried some, “because
he knoweth that his time is short. All our godly pastors are to be
dragged to prison. We shall see them at a Smithfield fire in King
street.”
Hereupon the people of each parish gathered closer round their
minister, who looked calmly upward and assumed a more apostolic
dignity, as well befitted a candidate for the highest honor of his
profession—a crown of martyrdom. It was actually fancied at that period
that New England might have a John Rogers of her own to take the place
of that worthy in the _Primer_.
“The pope of Rome has given orders for a new St. Bartholomew,” cried
others. “We are to be massacred, man and male-child.”
Neither was this rumor wholly discredited; although the wiser class
believed the governor’s object somewhat less atrocious. His predecessor
under the old charter, Bradstreet, a venerable companion of the first
settlers, was known to be in town. There were grounds for conjecturing
that Sir Edmund Andros intended at once to strike terror by a parade of
military force and to confound the opposite faction by possessing
himself of their chief.
“Stand firm for the old charter-governor!” shouted the crowd, seizing
upon the idea—“the good old Governor Bradstreet!”
While this cry was at the loudest the people were surprised by the
well-known figure of Governor Bradstreet himself, a patriarch of nearly
ninety, who appeared on the elevated steps of a door and with
characteristic mildness besought them to submit to the constituted
authorities.
“My children,” concluded this venerable person, “do nothing rashly. Cry
not aloud, but pray for the welfare of New England and expect patiently
what the Lord will do in this matter.”
The event was soon to be decided. All this time the roll of the drum
had been approaching through Cornhill, louder and deeper, till with
reverberations from house to house and the regular tramp of martial
footsteps it burst into the street. A double rank of soldiers made
their appearance, occupying the whole breadth of the passage, with
shouldered matchlocks and matches burning, so as to present a row of
fires in the dusk. Their steady march was like the progress of a
machine that would roll irresistibly over everything in its way. Next,
moving slowly, with a confused clatter of hoofs on the pavement, rode a
party of mounted gentlemen, the central figure being Sir Edmund Andros,
elderly, but erect and soldier-like. Those around him were his favorite
councillors and the bitterest foes of New England. At his right hand
rode Edward Randolph, our arch-enemy, that “blasted wretch,” as Cotton
Mather calls him, who achieved the downfall of our ancient government
and was followed with a sensible curse-through life and to his grave.
On the other side was Bullivant, scattering jests and mockery as he
rode along. Dudley came behind with a downcast look, dreading, as well
he might, to meet the indignant gaze of the people, who beheld him,
their only countryman by birth, among the oppressors of his native
land. The captain of a frigate in the harbor and two or three civil
officers under the Crown were also there. But the figure which most
attracted the public eye and stirred up the deepest feeling was the
Episcopal clergyman of King’s Chapel riding haughtily among the
magistrates in his priestly vestments, the fitting representative of
prelacy and persecution, the union of Church and State, and all those
abominations which had driven the Puritans to the wilderness. Another
guard of soldiers, in double rank, brought up the rear.
The whole scene was a picture of the condition of New England, and its
moral, the deformity of any government that does not grow out of the
nature of things and the character of the people—on one side the
religious multitude with their sad visages and dark attire, and on the
other the group of despotic rulers with the high churchman in the midst
and here and there a crucifix at their bosoms, all magnificently clad,
flushed with wine, proud of unjust authority and scoffing at the
universal groan. And the mercenary soldiers, waiting but the word to
deluge the street with blood, showed the only means by which obedience
could be secured.
“O Lord of hosts,” cried a voice among the crowd, “provide a champion
for thy people!”
This ejaculation was loudly uttered, and served as a herald’s cry to
introduce a remarkable personage. The crowd had rolled back, and were
now huddled together nearly at the extremity of the street, while the
soldiers had advanced no more than a third of its length. The
intervening space was empty—a paved solitude between lofty edifices
which threw almost a twilight shadow over it. Suddenly there was seen
the figure of an ancient man who seemed to have emerged from among the
people and was walking by himself along the centre of the street to
confront the armed band. He wore the old Puritan dress—a dark cloak and
a steeple-crowned hat in the fashion of at least fifty years before,
with a heavy sword upon his thigh, but a staff in his hand to assist
the tremulous gait of age.
When at some distance from the multitude, the old man turned slowly
round, displaying a face of antique majesty rendered doubly venerable
by the hoary beard that descended on his breast. He made a gesture at
once of encouragement and warning, then turned again and resumed his
way.
“Who is this gray patriarch?” asked the young men of their sires.
“Who is this venerable brother?” asked the old men among themselves.
But none could make reply. The fathers of the people, those of
fourscore years and upward, were disturbed, deeming it strange that
they should forget one of such evident authority whom they must have
known in their early days, the associate of Winthrop and all the old
councillors, giving laws and making prayers and leading them against
the savage. The elderly men ought to have remembered him, too, with
locks as gray in their youth as their own were now. And the young! How
could he have passed so utterly from their memories—that hoary sire,
the relic of long-departed times, whose awful benediction had surely
been bestowed on their uncovered heads in childhood?
“Whence did he come? What is his purpose? Who can this old man be?”
whispered the wondering crowd.
Meanwhile, the venerable stranger, staff in hand, was pursuing his
solitary walk along the centre of the street. As he drew near the
advancing soldiers, and as the roll of their drum came full upon his
ear, the old man raised himself to a loftier mien, while the
decrepitude of age seemed to fall from his shoulders, leaving him in
gray but unbroken dignity. Now he marched onward with a warrior’s step,
keeping time to the military music. Thus the aged form advanced on one
side and the whole parade of soldiers and magistrates on the other,
till, when scarcely twenty yards remained between, the old man grasped
his staff by the middle and held it before him like a leader’s
truncheon.
“Stand!” cried he.
The eye, the face and attitude of command, the solemn yet warlike peal
of that voice—fit either to rule a host in the battle-field or be
raised to God in prayer—were irresistible. At the old man’s word and
outstretched arm the roll of the drum was hushed at once and the
advancing line stood still. A tremulous enthusiasm seized upon the
multitude. That stately form, combining the leader and the saint, so
gray, so dimly seen, in such an ancient garb, could only belong to some
old champion of the righteous cause whom the oppressor’s drum had
summoned from his grave. They raised a shout of awe and exultation, and
looked for the deliverance of New England.
The governor and the gentlemen of his party, perceiving themselves
brought to an unexpected stand, rode hastily forward, as if they would
have pressed their snorting and affrighted horses right against the
hoary apparition. He, however, blenched not a step, but, glancing his
severe eye round the group, which half encompassed him, at last bent it
sternly on Sir Edmund Andros. One would have thought that the dark old
man was chief ruler there, and that the governor and council with
soldiers at their back, representing the whole power and authority of
the Crown, had no alternative but obedience.
“What does this old fellow here?” cried Edward Randolph, fiercely.—“On,
Sir Edmund! Bid the soldiers forward, and give the dotard the same
choice that you give all his countrymen—to stand aside or be trampled
on.”
“Nay, nay! Let us show respect to the good grandsire,” said Bullivant,
laughing. “See you not he is some old round-headed dignitary who hath
lain asleep these thirty years and knows nothing of the change of
times? Doubtless he thinks to put us down with a proclamation in Old
Noll’s name.”
“Are you mad, old man?” demanded Sir Edmund Andros, in loud and harsh
tones. “How dare you stay the march of King James’s governor?”
“I have stayed the march of a king himself ere now,” replied the gray
figure, with stern composure. “I am here, Sir Governor, because the cry
of an oppressed people hath disturbed me in my secret place, and,
beseeching this favor earnestly of the Lord, it was vouchsafed me to
appear once again on earth in the good old cause of his saints. And
what speak ye of James? There is no longer a popish tyrant on the
throne of England, and by to-morrow noon his name shall be a by-word in
this very street, where ye would make it a word of terror. Back, thou
that wast a governor, back! With this night thy power is ended.
To-morrow, the prison! Back, lest I foretell the scaffold!”
The people had been drawing nearer and nearer and drinking in the words
of their champion, who spoke in accents long disused, like one
unaccustomed to converse except with the dead of many years ago. But
his voice stirred their souls. They confronted the soldiers, not wholly
without arms and ready to convert the very stones of the street into
deadly weapons. Sir Edmund Andros looked at the old man; then he cast
his hard and cruel eye over the multitude and beheld them burning with
that lurid wrath so difficult to kindle or to quench, and again he
fixed his gaze on the aged form which stood obscurely in an open space
where neither friend nor foe had thrust himself. What were his thoughts
he uttered no word which might discover, but, whether the oppressor
were overawed by the Gray Champion’s look or perceived his peril in the
threatening attitude of the people, it is certain that he gave back and
ordered his soldiers to commence a slow and guarded retreat. Before
another sunset the governor and all that rode so proudly with him were
prisoners, and long ere it was known that James had abdicated King
William was proclaimed throughout New England.
But where was the Gray Champion? Some reported that when the troops had
gone from King street and the people were thronging tumultuously in
their rear, Bradstreet, the aged governor, was seen to embrace a form
more aged than his own. Others soberly affirmed that while they
marvelled at the venerable grandeur of his aspect the old man had faded
from their eyes, melting slowly into the hues of twilight, till where
he stood there was an empty space. But all agreed that the hoary shape
was gone. The men of that generation watched for his reappearance in
sunshine and in twilight, but never saw him more, nor knew when his
funeral passed nor where his gravestone was.
And who was the Gray Champion? Perhaps his name might be found in the
records of that stern court of justice which passed a sentence too
mighty for the age, but glorious in all after-times for its humbling
lesson to the monarch and its high example to the subject. I have heard
that whenever the descendants of the Puritans are to show the spirit of
their sires the old man appears again. When eighty years had passed, he
walked once more in King street. Five years later, in the twilight of
an April morning, he stood on the green beside the meeting-house at
Lexington where now the obelisk of granite with a slab of slate inlaid
commemorates the first-fallen of the Revolution. And when our fathers
were toiling at the breastwork on Bunker’s Hill, all through that night
the old warrior walked his rounds. Long, long may it be ere he comes
again! His hour is one of darkness and adversity and peril. But should
domestic tyranny oppress us or the invader’s step pollute our soil,
still may the Gray Champion come! for he is the type of New England’s
hereditary spirit, and his shadowy march on the eve of danger must ever
be the pledge that New England’s sons will vindicate their ancestry.