51. The Rule of Joseph Dudley and the Council of New England

During the year 1684, while Randolph, Dudley, and their allies were happily spinning plans for the government of New England after the abolition of the Massachusetts charter, the Lords of Trade made their own modifications of the Randolph-Dudley plan of the year before. Their proposal, though very similar, provided that royal despotism be stripped of even the thin façade of home rule allowed by Randolph and Dudley. In the lords’ plan the governor general and the Council for New England would all be appointed—the latter to be appointed, of course, by the governor—and unchecked by any representative assembly. Governor and Council would have full power to legislate, adjudicate, tax, regulate trade, foster the Church of England, and impose a system of quitrents. In short, it was a fully centralized royal despotism over all of New England. The characteristic Tory regime of this era, imposing throne, altar, mercantilism, big government, and feudalism, was to be imposed upon the one area in America that had been self-governing and blissfully free of most of these elements. Since the Rhode Island and Connecticut charters were still in operation, the lords’ initial plan was to begin with one royal government for Massachusetts (including Maine), New Hampshire, and, after study of the Cranfield report, the Narragansett Country. The Narragansett lands were to be detached from Rhode Island and joined to the expanded Massachusetts; the governor general would confirm all land titles upon payment of quitrent. The Lords of Trade then decided to add Plymouth to the expanded Massachusetts and looked forward to adding Rhode Island and Connecticut should their charters be abrogated.

No sooner had the Massachusetts charter been dissolved at the end of October, however, than a grave blow fell on the carefully constructed plan. The king suddenly decided to appoint as royal governor of Massachusetts the notoriously brutal Col. Percy Kirke.

At this juncture, with all plans in limbo, Charles II died in early February 1685 and was succeeded by his brother, James II, a Roman Catholic and high Tory. James, in a frenzy to eliminate all independent and proprietary colonies, and to change them to outright royal colonies, began quo warranto proceedings against several colonial charters, with Randolph enthusiastically drawing up the charges against Connecticut and Rhode Island. The plans for a new, expanded Massachusetts government were temporarily postponed in order to settle the problems of a new reign. But finally, in September 1685, James II decreed the governmental form that the new royal colony of Massachusetts would take.

The new royal colony was to be the Dominion of New England, a colony made up of the former colonies of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and the Narragansett Country. Ruling over the Dominion was to be a Grand Council, appointed by the Crown and drawn from residents of all the previous colonies. Secretary and registrar of the Dominion was Edward Randolph, whose suggestions for the Council had all been accepted by King James. Chosen as president of the Council was Joseph Dudley. The appointment of Colonel Kirke had fallen through, and the Randolph-Dudley clique was now in complete control. With the exception of Connecticut and Rhode Island, takeover of the colonies was now complete. There would now be no representative assembly to block the clique’s path to power and plunder. The triumphant Randolph was now reconfirmed in his old commission of collector of customs, his royal salary and fees were considerably increased, and he also acquired the royal offices of auditor for New England, deputy postmaster general, and surveyor of the New England woods.

The Dudley-Randolph government took office in Boston, after Randolph arrived at the end of May 1686. The Dudley Council was to rule until the king could send over a governor general to take charge. The new governing Council of the Dominion of New England was an instructive collection of all the leading pro-English opportunists in Massachusetts and New Hampshire: Joseph Dudley, president; William Stoughton, deputy president; Edward Randolph, secretary; John Usher, treasurer; plus Robert Mason, Fitz-John Winthrop, John Pynchon, Peter Bulkeley, Wait Winthrop, Richard Wharton, Nathaniel Saltonstall, Simon Bradstreet, Dudley Bradstreet, Bartholomew Gedney, John Hinckes, Francis Champernowne, Edward Tyng, and Jonathan Tyng. Of these councillors, all resided in Massachusetts proper except Mason and Hinckes who resided in New Hampshire; Champernowne and Edward Tyng, who came from the Maine towns; and Fitz-John Winthrop, of King’s Province. Of these, however, Saltonstall, Champernowne, and the Bradstreets refused to serve, the latter two because the office was “a thing contrived to abridge them of their liberty and, indeed, against the Magna Carta.”

Meanwhile, how did once proud Massachusetts react to the stunning news of its demise? The popular opposition party remained in power as the blow fell, and stubbornly refused to make a formal submission. It even proceeded to indict a man for saying that the Massachusetts government no longer existed, but Randolph’s arrival in May put a stop to these proceedings. The General Court had decided on nonviolent civil disobedience: not revolting, but refusing to consent to the new arrangement. Understandably, the court was particularly exercised over the elimination of a representative assembly, and of its sole right to levy taxes. But this did not faze Randolph and Dudley, who successfully proceeded to ignore the General Court and to assume the reins of government.

On May 25 the Dudley Council assumed office over Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and quickly began to make its impact upon New England. The Dudley regime has been accurately termed a “feast of political privilege” for the members of the new ruling clique. Dudley and his relatives took care to grant themselves large tracts of vacant land, and to assign to themselves and their friends all the government offices having any degree of patronage or influence. In this spirit, they determined legal fees, imports, and duties, selected ports of entry, exempted themselves from town taxation, and had themselves paid handsomely for these services to themselves. The ruling clique was composed mostly of merchants who by intermarriage formed a tangled web of family connections. John Usher, treasurer of the Dominion, was the brother-in-law of Dudley’s brother-in-law. Richard Wharton, councillor, had married the first cousin of Dudley’s wife, and had later married Martha Winthrop, sister of Fitz-John and Wait Winthrop. Edward Palmes, made a justice of the peace, had married another Winthrop sister, Lucy. Edward and Jonathan Tyng were the brothers of Dudley’s wife, Rebecca.

The Dudley clique happily engaged in their feast of privilege. Dudley, Wharton, the Winthrops, and others banded together to secure themselves a grant to the vast “Million Acre Purchase” of the Merrimack River, a territory that included consolidation of previous arbitrary land claims and dubious Indian purchases. To facilitate the granting of governmental powers over the area, the Council formed the Merrimack land into a new Merrimack County, and these grants were secured by giving both William Blathwayt and Edward Randolph shares in the new company.

But it took only a few weeks in office for Edward Randolph to become disenchanted with the Dudley regime. For he saw, to his horror, that the opportunist clique was interested far more in using power to gain privileges for itself, than in regulating and taxing its fellow citizens to benefit the English Crown. In general, this was an easygoing regime. In his inaugural address, Dudley had promised a transition as “plain and easy as possible.” Indeed, many of the old officeholders were reappointed by the Council; only a few men were hauled before the Council for contempt, and only one was imprisoned for voicing sedition. Some of the Puritans were scandalized at the appearance of Anglican services and the use of the Anglican Prayer Book and by the “high-handed wickedness” of non-Puritans in Boston, drinking, and talking “profanely and bawdily to the great disturbance of the town, and grief of good people.” But the Council, to Randolph’s chagrin, did not foster the Church of England actively. Randolph also grumbled about the paucity of Anglicans in high office in the Dominion. On the Council only he and Mason were Anglicans, and only a handful of the more than sixty officers of the militia were not Puritan church members. Randolph also found himself losing out in the division of the patronage spoils to the numerous relatives of the Dudley-Wharton clique.

Randolph’s chagrin was also directed to the alleged failure of this merchant ruling group to enforce the Navigation Acts with the enthusiasm that he felt was required. Dudley, however, had really proceeded auspiciously from the Randolph point of view—quickly launching the radical innovation of trying Navigation Act violations in newly constituted admiralty courts. These were royal prerogative courts that decided cases outside the safeguards of jury trial and of the features of the common law. In this way, the government could bypass the checks of jury trial. Dudley worked out the stratagem with Samuel Pepys, secretary of the Navy Board in England, and in only two weeks had condemned three ships. But the implacable Randolph was not satisfied. Writing home, he denounced Dudley as “a man of base, servile and anti-monarchial principle,” and portrayed Wharton as a smuggler and a seditionary who had criticized his, Randolph’s, appointment to the secretariat as “intended to enthrall this people in vassalage.” Actually, the root of Randolph’s carping was the fact that Dudley allowed the naval commander, as well as Randolph, to initiate actions enforcing the navigation laws, thus depriving Randolph of the financial rewards for the commander’s successful suits.

Above all, Randolph chafed at the failure of the Council to adopt his cherished goal of imposing a drastic program of despotism and plunder, run by himself, on the Dominion. Randolph wanted to replace the county officers registering land titles with one central office—his own—where everyone, for a handsome fee, would be forced to register his land title. When the Council refused this attempted grab, Randolph cried out in righteous indignation to his friends in England: “The beneficial perquisites of my office are alienated!” Randolph went on to propose a grand compulsory registry of all persons over sixteen; the forced licensing of all ministers; and the requirement that all ministers must have the approval of the governor to assume their posts—in short, a virtual Anglican establishment, and restriction of non-Anglican services in the Dominion. These proposals too were rebuffed. To Randolph this was base ingratitude by his own creatures whom he had elevated to state power. Randolph now found that his erstwhile allies were individuals who “agree in nothing but sharing the country amongst themselves and laying out long tracts of lands,” and who believe that “this change was intended only to advantage them”—rather than Randolph or the Crown. Of all the councillors, only Usher and Stoughton now met with his approval.

One saving grace of the Dudley administration, a grace that worked to keep its power relatively weak, was scarcity of funds. Virtually its only meager sources of supply were the excise on liquors, and fees. It did not dare levy any direct taxes without having the approval of an assembly.

As partners in the Atherton Company, councillors Fitz-John and Wait Winthrop were largely interested in finally seizing control of the Narragansett Country, now incorporated into the Dominion of New England. The Council, which included several other partners of the Atherton Company, promptly moved to implement the Cranfield report of three years earlier. At the end of June, Dudley, Fitz-John Winthrop, Randolph, and Wharton traveled to Kingston in King’s Province and reorganized the whole government of the Narragansett Country. They proclaimed that absolute ownership of the land belonged to the Atherton proprietors, and announced that anyone settling on these lands without the permission of these arbitrarily decreed proprietors would have to purchase or rent the land. Rhode Island dared not contest this naked seizure of its territory, its life being under the continuing threat of quo warranto action. The proprietors quickly began to exploit this windfall by selling a tract of land to a group of French Huguenot refugees at twenty pounds for 100 acres.

Finally, in December 1686 the complexion of New England and the northern colonies underwent another change. Sir Edmund Andros arrived in Boston to assume the rule of an expanded, far more centralized and Crown-oriented Dominion of New England. The history of the northern colonies was entering a new and fateful phase.