CHARTER GOVERNMENT AGAIN RESUMED.--FRENCH WAR.--INTERNAL
IMPROVEMENTS.--CHARGES AGAINST THE COLONIES.
Rhode Island had never hated Andros as bitterly as the other colonies
had hated him, for the freedom of conscience which he endeavored to
force upon them was in her a fundamental principle. But she loved her
charter and rightly believed that it was the only sure pledge of her
liberties. Therefore, when Dudley, the Chief-Justice, undertook to
open his court, he was seized and put in jail. This was a bold casting
off of the new government. The next step was a cautious return to the
old. A letter from Newport came out calling upon the freemen of Rhode
Island to meet there "before the day of usual election by charter,"
to take counsel together concerning public affairs. When the day came
the freemen met, and doubtless with all their usual freedom of debate,
prepared a statement of their reasons for resuming their charter
government. Party lines were already sharply drawn. On one side were
the Royalists, led by the rich merchant, Francis Brinley, who opposed
the resumption of the charter, and called for a general government by
immediate appointment of the King. On the other were the Republicans,
stronger both by number and by fervor of opinion. Their boldness
secured the freedom of the Colony. In an address to "the present
supreme power of England," they gave their reasons for returning to
their charter, and asked to have their action approved. Deputy-Governor
Coggeshall, with several assistants, resumed their functions, but
Governor Clarke, whose characteristic trait was caution, declined and
the Colony was ten months without a governor.
Still, in May, all the old officers were reinstated and "all the laws
superseded in 1686" resumed their place on the schedule. "The charter
was produced in open Assembly" and then restored to Governor Clarke
for safe keeping. When the question of the legality of the resumption
of charter government came before the King, he approved it upon the
written opinion of the law officers of the crown that "the charter,
never having been revoked, but only suspended, still remained in full
force and effect." Heartily must Rhode Island and Connecticut have
rejoiced that theirs had been so successfully guarded. In May came
the welcome tidings that William and Mary had been acknowledged in
England. They were promptly and joyfully acknowledged in the colonies.
Dr. Increase Mather, a great name in Massachusetts, was in London on
behalf of the colonies when the revolution broke out. He obtained an
early audience of William and pleaded for the recall of Andros. The
recall was granted, and after ten months of confinement the crestfallen
Governor was sent to England for trial. But his conduct was viewed in
a different light in the mother country from what it had been in the
colonies. "The charges against him were dismissed by the royal order,
on the ground of insufficiency--and that he had done nothing which was
not fully justified by his instructions." As a compensation for his
long imprisonment, he was presently made Governor of Virginia.
In February, 1689-90, the Assembly met for the first time in four years
and entered upon the work of organization. Seventeen deputies, together
with the officers chosen in May, were present. Absentees were summoned.
Clarke refused to serve as Governor. Christopher Almy also declined.
The bold but aged Henry Bull was chosen in his stead. After some
hesitation Clarke gave up the charter and other official papers. Funds
which had been appropriated to the building of a Colony House were held
by Roger Goulding, who promptly paid them over. Andros had broken the
original colonial seal. A new seal, Hope with her anchor, was procured.
Rhode Island's exposed situation laid her open to attacks by sea, and
thus imposed the necessity of new expenses. War had broken out between
England and France, and the colonies were to come in for their share
of war's sufferings. Some fear was felt of the colony in Frenchtown,
and the few survivors of the unfortunate settlement were required to
repair to the office of John Greene, in Warwick, and take the oath of
allegiance to the King.
Thus the government was regularly organized and public business began
to move on in its accustomed track. At the May session of 1690 Governor
Bull declined a reelection, and John Easton was chosen in his place.
John Greene was chosen Deputy-Governor. One more was added to the list
of assistants, who thus became ten. Here ends the probation of Rhode
Island.
Poor and weak, through toil and sacrifice, in spite of internal
dissensions and external enmities, calumniated for the great truth
on which she was founded, coveted for the beautiful territory which
she had redeemed from the wilderness, she had solved the problem of
self-government and proved that the religious virtues may flourish
without the aid of civil authority. The struggle for existence is over.
She now enters through industry upon the path to wealth and culture.
The sessions of the Assembly had been held hitherto in taverns or
private houses. But now a proper edifice, the town house, is built for
public use and the public meetings are held in it. Thus far, also,
the governor, the deputy-governor and the assistants have received no
compensation for their services. They are henceforth exempted from the
Colony tax. War with the French and Indians was raging all along the
northern frontier. New York was the colony most exposed. Leister, her
Governor, called on the other colonies for aid. Rhode Island, whose
extensive water fronts left her open to attacks by sea, could not send
men, and therefore taxed herself three hundred pounds to send money.
The wisdom of this course was soon apparent. Seven French privateers
made a descent upon the islands on the coast, committing horrible
excesses. Bonfires were kindled at Pawcatuck to alarm the country,
and a sloop well manned sent out from Newport to reconnoitre. A night
attempt was made upon the town but failed. One upon New London was
repulsed. Two sloops carrying ninety men were sent out under Thomas
Paine and John Godfrey to fight the enemy. A bloody battle which lasted
two hours and a half followed, and the French were driven off with
the loss of half their crews and a valuable prize. Block Island was
particularly exposed during this war. Four attacks were made upon it,
the inhabitants ill treated and their cattle driven off. In the last
invasion the privateersmen were defeated in "an open pitched battle."
The war pressed so heavily on the commercial interests of the
community that it was found necessary to lay a tonnage duty of a
shilling a ton upon the vessels over ten tons burthen of other colonies
that broke bulk in Newport harbor. The payment might be made in money
or in powder, at the rate of a shilling a pound, and the products of
the duty were employed in keeping up a powder magazine on the island.
Rhode Islanders had not yet learnt to pay their taxes promptly, and
more than once the Assembly was called together to devise the means of
collecting sums already voted. The tonnage duty was a welcome, though a
small contribution, to the scanty resources of the little Colony. A few
years later a new source was opened by the levy of a duty upon foreign
wines, liquors and molasses--that upon molasses being a half-penny a
gallon. In the August session of 1698 an elaborate tax law in twelve
sections was enacted, and a tax of eight hundred pounds currency was
voted. By this act a poll tax of a shilling a head was imposed upon
all males between sixteen and sixty. But this, also, was not easily
collected, and years passed before an adequate method of taxation was
devised and applied.
Shortly after the return to the charter the small-pox broke out. "Rhode
Island is almost destroyed by the small-pox," says a cotemporary
letter. When the Assembly met they were unable to open the session
with the prescribed formalities, for the only copy of the charter was
in the keeping of the recorder, who was sick with the dreaded disease,
and the reading of the charter was the first step towards organization.
When the pestilence was passed, the attention of legislation was
directed to the militia laws, which were revised and brought more into
harmony with the material wants of the Colony. In this connection it
may not be out of place to remember that the town house was enlarged
and a belfry added to it. Government was gradually putting on the
external forms of authority.
In 1691 a change occurred on the eastern border which threatened
her inter-colonial relations. Plymouth was merged in Massachusetts,
which was thus brought into larger contact with Rhode Island. Sir
William Phipps, a native of Massachusetts, was appointed Governor,
with a commission which gave him command over all the forces of New
England, by land and by sea--a flagrant violation of the charters
of Rhode Island and Connecticut, and which was vigorously repelled.
Older grievances were not entirely healed. Some Pawcatuck men asked to
be placed under the laws of Connecticut. The leaven of the Atherton
company dispute had not yet spent its force. But the change of tone in
the language of the correspondence shows that the bitterness which had
distinguished its early stages was gradually passing away.
This (1692) was the time of the witchcraft trials in Massachusetts,
a delusion in which Rhode Island did not share, for though she gave
witchcraft a place on her statute books as a tribute to a superstition
of the age, she never brought it into her courts. She was busied with
more important questions.
Phipps was urging his claim to command the New England forces.
John Greene, now Deputy-Governor, went to Boston with one of the
assistants to discuss the matter. They got no satisfaction from the
aspiring governor, either upon the question of command or upon the
equally important question of the boundary line. The whole matter was
referred to the Board of Trade and by them to the Attorney-General,
who decided in favor of Rhode Island. A distinction, however, was made
between peace and war. In time of war the commander-in-chief might, in
conjunction with the governor, call out the quota prescribed by the
Board of Trade. Rhode Island's quota for service under the Governor
of New York was forty-eight men. The eastern boundary question was
referred to the New York Council as being disinterested and near
the spot. The Narragansett dispute though so often decided in favor
of Rhode Island, still reappeared from time to time. Several years
were yet to pass before the boundaries both on the east and the west
were definitively settled and the stout little Colony secured in the
possession of her own territory. I shall no longer attempt to follow
the story through its obscure ramifications. It has served thus far to
illustrate colonial life, and show with what tenacity of purpose and
devotion to a great principle Rhode Island followed up her labor of
organization. It was the border war of our colonial history.
The necessity of regular communication between the colonies began to
be seriously felt, and part of John Greene's mission to Boston in
1692 was to negotiate the establishment of a post office. Early in
the following year Thomas Neale, acting under patent from the King,
established a weekly mail from Boston to Virginia. Rhode Island came
in for her share of the advantage. The rate of postage upon a single
inland letter from Boston to Rhode Island was sixpence. And thus was
woven one of the first links in the chain which, before another century
was passed, had bound all the colonies in an indissoluble union.
We have seen a gradual approach towards a just comprehension of the
relations of the state to its officers. The decisive step was taken
in 1695, when a salary of ten pounds was voted to the governor, six
pounds to the deputy-governor, four pounds to the assistants and three
shillings a day to the deputies while in session. Absentees forfeited
twice their pay.
In the following year an important change was made in the organization
of the Assembly, the deputies becoming a separate house coordinate with
the assistants, each house occupying a separate room and having a veto
upon the action of the other. It will help to form a correct idea of
daily life in the country if I add that a bounty of ten shillings was
paid for killing old wolves, and of the seaports and sea coast that
privateers were fitted out from them with very irregular commissions.
Blackbirds fared hard in Portsmouth, where every householder was
required to kill twelve before the tenth of May, under penalty of
two shillings, and with a premium of a shilling a head for all over
twelve. This was to serve as a protection for fields. But the serious
danger was from the Indians, for the treaty of Ryswick gave for
sometime but an imperfect peace to the colonies. Inroads of Indians
were frequent and sudden. Never had the councils of war been more
active or more constantly in session, and never had the men who were
fit for service been more constantly under arms. Scouting parties of
ten men were sent out every two days to serve beyond the limits of
the plantations. Such were the trials of the second generation of
colonizers.
The violation of the acts of trade and lax dealing with privateers
became so flagrant that the home government after many vain complaints
resolved to establish courts of admiralty in all the colonies. The
attorney-general was consulted and said there was nothing in their
charters to prevent it. The colonial agents, exerted themselves
earnestly to ward off the blow, but without success, and when the Rhode
Island agent, Jahleel Brenton, returned in December, 1697-8, he brought
a commission to Peleg Sandford as Judge, and to Nathaniel Coddington as
Register. Governor Clarke opposed it and tried to induce the Assembly
to join in the opposition. Brenton advised that he should be impeached,
whereupon Clarke resigned in favor of his nephew, Samuel Cranston.
The Colony was entering upon a new period of trial and danger. The
enemies of her chartered rights were numerous and powerful, and
unhappily for her were supported in their charges by a dangerous
array of specious evidence. The rival interests were represented by
men admirably fitted for their respective tasks. The Royal Governor of
Massachusetts, Lord Bellemont, a man of singular ability and strength
of character, represented the party that would have made New England a
vice-royalty. Cranston, firm, resolute and self-possessed, held that
Rhode Island under the protection of her charter had fully proved her
capacity for self-government.
The great interest at stake was the interest of trade. Domestic trade
was fostered and protected. Peddling was prohibited as injurious to
regular traffic. Pains were taken to secure uniformity of weights and
measures. In all this no power was assumed which the spirit if not the
letter of the charter did not fully grant. But the act of navigation
had raised up an enemy to foreign trade which in time of war encouraged
privateering and in time of peace led to piracy. The treaty of Ryswick
left many hardy spirits afloat, greedy for gold and unscrupulous in
their pursuit of it.
The American coast offered great facilities for smuggling, and it was
only as smugglers that pirates or privateersmen could convert their
prizes into money. Much of this money it is said was buried in retired
nooks of the inlets and bays along the coast. The royal revenues
suffered greatly by this illicit trade, and the royal agents accused
the colonists of openly favoring it. "The people of New York," wrote
Lord Bellemont to the Board of Trade, "have such an appetite for
piracy and unlawful trade that they are ready to rebel as often as the
government puts the law in execution against them." Rhode Island was
held to be a favorite resort of these bold adventurers. Both Cranston
her Governor, and John Greene her Deputy-Governor were accused of
favoring them. Greene, who had been elected ten years in succession,
was dropped in 1700, but Cranston was reëlected from year to year,
thirty years in succession.
Meanwhile Bellemont, whose hostility was embittered by the instigations
of Randolph, went on collecting document upon document, till the
formidable list amounted to twenty-five heads of accusation--chief of
which was connivance with pirates--and, as he wrote to the Board of
Trade, "making Rhode Island their sanctuary." Should the Board of Trade
accept these accusations, what could preserve the Colony from a quo
warranto? Nothing did save her but the death of the Royal Governor.
To this period belongs the story of Captain Kidd, long the subject of
many a fearful tradition and all the more widely known from having
exchanged an admiral's flag for the black flag of the corsair. After
a wild and adventurous career in the Indian ocean he came to the
American coast, and showing himself boldly in the streets of Boston was
arrested, sent to England for trial and hanged.