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AMERICAN colonial life at the close of the seventeenth century shows a striking tendency towards uniformity in political thought and action. In the earlier period two strong influences had been at work to produce variation rather than uniformity; the first was the policy of proprietary or chartered colonization, which gave to each proprietor and each group of self-governing colonists the opportunity to modify the common English tradition according to their special needs and ideals; the second was the geographical isolation of the various groups of settlers, which checked their interchange of ideas and experiences with each other and with the mother-country. Great differences had resulted in institutions and in political issues. The practical politics of Massachusetts under its theocratic-republican constitution had little in common with that of Virginia under the rule of Governor Berkeley or that of Maryland under the proprietary system.

Gradually, however, the extension of imperial control

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limited the opportunity for political experiment. The provincial system was established in half of the colonies and the proprietary governors themselves were held to a stricter accountability to the crown. Only the two small governments of Connecticut and Rhode Island remained wholly outside of the provincial system, and even they were troubled with appeals to the crown and acts of Parliament restraining their trade. The physical obstacles to colonial intercourse were still serious, but even these had been lessened. New settlements were gradually filling the intervening spaces, intercolonial trade was developing, and an intercolonial postal system had been begun. The common dangers of border warfare also forced the colonies into a rather grudging co-operation, and brought their leaders into more frequent contact with one another. Thus there arose a degree of uniformity which makes it possible to speak, not merely of the politics of Massachusetts or Virginia, but of certain common tendencies which appear in the political life of the colonies as a whole, or at least of that large majority of them which had been brought under the provincial system.

These general principles of colonial politics cannot be understood without a study of the provincial constitution, using the term in its broadest sense to include proprietary as well as royal governments. The essential feature of this system was a governor appointed either by the king or by a proprietor,

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except in those comparatively rare cases in which the proprietor governed the province in person. In any case, the governor represented the principle of external control, an authority outside of the community itself. His powers and duties were defined by his commission and instructions, issued by this same external authority and revocable at will. By his side stood the councillors, who, except in Massachusetts, derived their powers from the king or proprietor, and thus like him represented the principle of external control. Generally speaking, the home government took the governor's advice in the appointment and dismissal of councillors, so that he could depend upon their political support. There were, however, frequent exceptions, and often, as in Virginia, the councillors belonged to a kind of local aristocracy whose point of view differed from that of the governor.

The only royal province in which councillors were not appointed by the crown was Massachusetts. There they were annually chosen by joint ballot of the representatives and councillors, but the governor had the right of veto, which was frequently exercised during the first twenty years of royal government. Aggressive leaders of the popular party were thus kept out. of the council, and members once elected were disposed to conciliate the governor.

The governor, either independently or with the council, was intrusted with the ordinary executive

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powers of appointment, military command, financial control, and, with some limitations, that of pardon. The governor and councillors also influenced the administration of justice through their appointment of judges and the direct exercise of certain judicial functions. These functions were not the same in all the provinces, but in the ordinary royal governments the governor and council served as a court of appeal in civil cases. Generally speaking, then, the executive and judicial powers were intrusted to representatives of external authority.

In the legislative department alone was the principle of popular representation generally recognized by the authorities in England. By the close of the seventeenth century every province had its representative assembly, known by different names in different colonies. In Virginia, it was the house of burgesses; in South Carolina, the commons house of assembly; and in Massachusetts, the house of representatives. These different names, however, stood for essentially the same thing, an assembly of representatives, not of the whole people, but of the owners of property. The policy of the crown was to restrict representation to freeholders, as in the English counties, but this was not generally done.[*]

[* Bishop, Elections in the Colonies, 69 et seq.]

After a long period of controversy, two rights had been finally conceded to these representative

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bodies. They had a right, shared with the council, to initiate legislation; and no taxes could be laid by any other department of the provincial government without their consent. The legislative power of the representatives was, however, seriously limited by at least two checks: in all the provinces (except Pennsylvania after 1701) measures enacted by the representatives required the consent of the council acting as an upper house; in proprietary provinces acts had to be further approved by the proprietors or their representatives. In the royal governments acts without a suspending clause became law on the approval of the governor, though still subject to disallowance by the crown, a condition which, as already observed, was also required in Pennsylvania.

The fundamental fact of provincial politics after the revolution of 1689 is the conflict between the provincial governor and the representative assembly. The governor represented, first, the monarchical idea of prerogative, and, secondly, the principle of imperial control, whether exercised by king or Parliament. The assembly, on the other hand, stood not merely for the representative principle in government, but also for distinctly local interests. The policy of the colonial assemblies at its worst expressed a narrow and particularistic spirit, disregarding sound considerations of national or imperial policy; at its best it stood for the vital principle of local self-government, and for the protection

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of legitimate American interests as against a narrow British policy.

The popular party in America was stimulated by the course of politics in the mother-country. In 1689 the representative principle triumphed over prerogative, and the transfer of the crown was followed by the enactment of great fundamental statutes like the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement, which secured more completely than ever before the privileges of Parliament and the personal liberty of the subject. Among other measures at first rejected by William III., but finally forced upon him, were the triennial election of parliaments and the exclusion of office-holders from the House of Commons. The Commons also asserted more strictly their control of the national finances at the expense both of the king and the House of Lords. Large sums were given for the conduct of the foreign war, but the objects of expenditure were defined in detail; and, as already noted, an unsuccessful effort was made to establish a parliamentary council of trade. On the whole, the reigns of William and Anne show a clear though uneven advance towards the modern system of cabinet government, which practically enables a committee of the House of Commons to exercise the most important powers of the crown.

The provincial governments reproduced on a smaller scale the constitution of the mother-country. As the governor felt the responsibility of maintaining

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within the province the prerogative of the crown, so the assembly found support for its privileges and encouragement for its aspirations in the example of the English House of Commons. The colonial journals reproduce in surprising detail the parliamentary conflicts of the mother-country. Nevertheless, these ambitions of the colonial assemblies met with little sympathy from British statesmen of either school; the colonial prerogatives of the crown were identified with the political supremacy of England, and therefore had the support of English Whigs as well as English Tories.

Another influence favorable to the popular party in America was the experience of the chartered colonies: where, as in Massachusetts, a royal government was established over colonists who had been accustomed to almost complete independence, the freer practice of the earlier days established precedents which the crown could not wholly disregard. In provinces without exceptional privileges of self-government, the example of the chartered colonies exerted a strong and, from the royalist point of view, a demoralizing influence. In the surviving proprietary colonies the active hostility of the home government contributed to weaken the authority of the governors as against the popular party. This was notably the case in South Carolina, where the colonists appealed successfully to the crown against obnoxious measures of the proprietors. In 1702 the secretary of Pennsylvania

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wrote that the surrender of the Jerseys, taken together with other difficulties, had made "this government too precarious to be called one." From such governments it was comparatively easy for the assemblies to extort concessions. Nowhere was the spirit of self-government so strongly entrenched as in New England and Pennsylvania, and during the eighteenth century their example was especially dreaded by the prerogative party. Thus the distinctly American traditions of the self -governing colonies combined with the parliamentary usages of the mother-country to strengthen the representative element in the provincial constitution.[*]

[* Penn-Logan Correspondence, I., 121.]

Among the most interesting illustrations of the similarity of English and colonial politics after the revolution are the statutes or charters proposed in the principal royal governments. Thus, in 1691, the Virginia assembly instructed its agent in England to secure, if possible, a new charter confirming that of Charles II. and all previous charters of liberties and privileges. The burgesses asked, among other things, specific recognition of the exclusive right of the assembly to levy taxes, and of the "ancient method" of allowing appeals from the general judicial court to the general assembly. In the same year the New York assembly passed an act stating "the Rights and Priviledges of their Majesties Subjects inhabiting within their Province of New York." This act set forth certain privileges of the

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representative assembly and certain securities for personal and property rights.[*] A year later, the first provincial assembly of Massachusetts passed an act "setting forth general privileges;" and in 1694 a supplementary act with special reference to the constitutional privileges of the house of representatives. Under these acts the people of the province were declared exempt from all taxes except those levied by the general court, and the house of representatives was declared to have "an undoubted right to all the liberties and priviledges of an English assembly." The Maryland assembly took a somewhat similar course by inserting in the church act of 1696 a clause asserting that the people of the province "shall enjoy all their Rights and Liberties according to the Laws and Statutes of the Kingdom of England" on all points on which there was no provision in provincial statutes. Besides these general declarations, a number of acts were passed in the colonies affirming particular rights of the subject. Thus Massachusetts and South Carolina specifically asserted the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus.[**]

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 453, 454; N. Y. Colonial Laws, I., 244.]
[** Massachusetts Bay, Acts and Resolves, I., 40, 95-99, 170; Mereness, Maryland, 438; McCrady, South Carolina under Proprietary Government, 247.]

The attitude of the home government towards these colonial imitations of the English Bill of Rights is remarkable. All of the acts which have

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been mentioned were disallowed. In one instance, there was a minor and somewhat technical defect; in another, the act was declared unnecessary; and in another, the objections were not clearly stated. Two disallowances were particularly noteworthy: the New York act of 1691 was similar to that of 1683, which had been disallowed by James II., and the reasons given in the two cases were much alike. The later act was condemned by the Board of Trade, because it gave to the representatives "too great and unreasonable privileges"; because the exemption from the quartering of soldiers contained "several large and doubtful expressions." The Massachusetts act for the prevention of illegal imprisonment was set aside on the ground that the privileges of the habeas corpus act of Charles II. had not as yet been granted in any of his majesty's plantations.

The colonial assemblies resembled the English House of Commons in desiring greater freedom from executive control and influence, and hence measures resembling the acts for triennial parliaments and the exclusion of office-holders from the Commons were more or less successfully advocated in the colonies. In Massachusetts the charter of 1691 permitted annual elections; Penn granted the same privilege to his colonists in his "charter" of 1701; and in both the Carolinas acts were passed for holding biennial elections; the Virginia assembly asked that assemblies might be held at least once

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in two years; and in New Jersey, which under the proprietors had been accustomed to frequent elections, the king was urged, though without success, to provide for triennial assemblies. So far as such acts were passed, they limited the power which the provincial governors generally possessed of summoning, proroguing, and dissolving assemblies.

Another parliamentary privilege jealously guarded by the colonists was that of judging elections; the Virginia burgesses declared, in 1692, that the house was the sole judge of the capacity or incapacity of its members; sheriffs who attempted to determine such questions were declared guilty of a breach of privilege, and two of them were ordered under arrest.[*]

[* Poore, Charters and Constitutions, II., 1536; Cooper, Statutes of S. C., II., 79; N. C. Col. Records, II., 213; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 454, 617; Chalmers, Revolt, I., 294, n.]

The assemblies were not, however, content with securing their freedom in the exercise of legislative privileges. They desired also to strengthen their control over the provincial executive, and their chief instrument for this purpose was the power to grant or withhold taxes. Of all the royal provinces, the most aggressive in this respect was Massachusetts, where the colonists under the old charter had been accustomed to almost entire independence. Even the new charter allowed them privileges unusual in a royal province, including the right to appoint many administrative officers. There was, moreover,

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in the province a strong radical party under the leadership of Elisha Cooke, one of the most aggressive members of the radical party which had been unwilling to accept the compromise charter of 1691. Cooke was repeatedly elected to the council, though several times excluded by the vetoes of Governor Phips and Governor Dudley. It appears to have been his policy to secure for the colony the largest measure of independence possible under the new charter.[*]

[* Hutchinson, Hist. of Mass. Bay (ed. of 1795), II., 70, 125, 137.]

The programme of the popular party in Massachusetts is partially set forth in an act passed by the general court in 1694, but soon after disallowed by the crown, claiming for the assembly the right to appoint all civil officers not particularly designated in the charter, besides a complete control of public expenditures. All official salaries were to be fixed by the assembly; whenever revenue was to be raised, the house should be apprised of the purpose for which it was to be used; and no money was to be expended except for the objects specified by law. Except in the case of contingent charges, every warrant must indicate the specific service for which the money was used and the law by which it had been authorized. The disallowance of the act did not prevent the assembly from carrying out substantially the policy here indicated; for in the face of constant protests from royal governors and the home government, the assembly

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steadily refused to make permanent provision for the civil list. The governor's salary was voted from year to year, expenditures were controlled by detailed appropriations, and the province treasurer was appointed by act of assembly.[*]

[* Massachusetts Bay, Acts and Resolves, I., 170, 174, 188, 394, 437; VII., 24, 376, passim.]

This radical programme was not fully carried out in the other provinces, but nearly every feature of it may be found in one or more of the royal or proprietary governments. In Virginia, where the assembly had granted a standing appropriation before the revolution, a fixed salary was secured to the governor; but permanent grants were refused in nearly all of the other colonies. There was also a growing tendency to appropriate money in detail and for limited periods of time, a method particularly objectionable to the home government because it enabled the assembly to exert pressure upon the governor for the purpose of carrying distinctively popular measures.

The claim of the assembly to control the finances came more and more to mean control by the representative house. Even before the English revolution, the Virginia burgesses refused to allow the council to act with them in laying the levy; and elsewhere the council was denied the right to amend money bills. This claim of the representative was resisted by the home government and was not always made good, though it was in

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accordance with the usage of the House of Commons.[*]

[* Cf. Osgood, Am. Cols. in the Seventeenth Century, chap. xiv.; Greene, Provincial Governor, 121-124, 169-174.]

In one respect the constitutional development of the colonies outstripped that of the mother-country. In England the formal appointment of ministers of state has remained to the present time in the hands of the crown, and, until the accession of the Hanoverians, Parliament had only an imperfect control. On the other hand, the appointment of administrative officers by the provincial assemblies became common soon after the English revolution, as a natural result of their theory of financial control. The money raised by public taxation belonged to the people, and their representatives had, therefore, the right to determine how it should be spent, and to provide the necessary safeguards for such expenditure.

The most important application of this theory was the appointment of the province treasurer by the assembly. In 1691 the governor of Barbadoes complained that the treasurer was appointed by act of assembly, and that the lower house claimed the nomination as "absolutely its own." In 1693 the Virginia council refused to accept a bill from the burgesses for appointing a treasurer; but after 1704 the treasurer of that province was regularly appointed by act of assembly. In New York the same policy was adopted during the early years of

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the eighteenth century, after the passage of resolutions referring to previous misapplication of funds; and in 1715 the governor was convinced that resistance to that method of appointment was no longer practicable. Similar appointments by the assembly were made in the proprietary governments of Pennsylvania, the Jerseys, and South Carolina, and for a time at least in the temporary royal province of Maryland. In South Carolina the public receiver or treasurer had been appointed by act of assembly at least as early as 1691, and in 1707 the governor approved an act which gave the exclusive right of nomination to the "House of Commons."[*] Thus, by the close of Queen Anne's reign, the colonial assemblies were, with few exceptions, enforcing their claim not merely to lay taxes and determine expenditures, but also to appoint the chief financial officer of the province.

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 371, 373, 405, 1693-1696, p. 66; Greene, Provincial Governor, 182-186; Chalmers, Opinions, 179; Smith, South Carolina, 15-17; cf. Osgood, Am. Cols. in the Seventeenth Century, II., 372-374.]

Royal officers in the colonies and the Board of Trade in England often pointed out the marked tendency towards autonomy in provincial administration and sought to check it. In 1703 the board attempted to make a stand upon the salary question, and Governor Dudley urged repeatedly upon the Massachusetts assembly the establishment of a fixed salary; but the house answered his arguments

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by insisting on "the native right and privilege" of English subjects, "from time to time to raise and dispose such sum and sums of money as the present exigency of affairs calls for." Hunter, in New York, was equally aggressive, but the best he could do was to secure a civil list for a fixed term of years. In 1711 the Board of Trade suggested that the New-Yorkers might be brought to terms by threatening the intervention of Parliament; but the ministry, as a whole, was not then ready for such thorough-going measures.[*]

[* Address of council and representatives, quoted in Palfrey, New England, IV., 297, n.; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col Hist., V., 191.]

While engaged in these constitutional controversies, the colonists came to appreciate the necessity of having their interests guarded by agents in the mother-country. Until the latter part of the seventeenth century such agents, though occasionally appointed, were intended to meet special emergencies of some kind. After the revolution it gradually became the general custom to maintain standing agencies in London, in charge of the interests of the particular province. At first these agents were usually appointed by act of assembly, requiring the consent of the governor, council, and representatives; but sometimes, as in Massachusetts, the choice was practically that of the house; they were also instructed from time to time by the assembly.[*]

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 453, 458. 632, 710; Sewall, Diary, II., 284; Tanner, "Colonial Agencies," in Political Science Quarterly, XVI., 24-49.]

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Through these agencies, and by various other methods, the colonists came to have considerable influence in London. Money was used to some extent to promote colonial interests, and there was an impression in the colonies that men of influence might be won by the use of it. In 1693, Governor Fletcher represented some of the colonists as thinking that "anything may be Effected at Whitehall for mony."[*] A few years later William Penn, after a considerable experience in English politics, was trying to secure the attorney-general's approval of the Pennsylvania laws. He noted some objection which the latter had made, but added his opinion that "a good fee would go a great way to clear the scruple, if I had it to give him."[**] The history of this colonial diplomacy in London has not yet been adequately studied; such a study should throw new light on the failure of the Board of Trade to repress the independent tendencies in colonial politics.

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 73; cf. Bassett, Writings of Colonel William Byrd, chaps. xxiv., xxv.]
[** Penn-Logan Correspondence, I., 297.]

The preceding survey seems to show that the practical effect of the imperialistic movement was counteracted by strong independent tendencies within the colonies, so that it is hard to avoid the paradoxical conclusion that a period characterized by the extension of imperial control was also one of growing independence on the part of the colonies. The explanation may be stated briefly thus: whereas,

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during the larger part of the seventeenth century, the colonists were left almost wholly to themselves or their proprietary governors, a measure of imperial control was, thereafter, gradually extended over them, and a majority were brought under the influence of the provincial system. When, however, that new status was extended over communities hitherto accustomed to freer action, important concessions became necessary; and as the colonies were brought into closer relations with each other, modifications of that system which had been found necessary in one colony tended to become general. The influence of English precedents also contributed to this result. The provincial constitution was modelled closely on that of England, without its strong aristocratic upper house; and the colonial assemblies shared the aspirations of the Mother of Parliaments. Thus we have, at the same time, an extension of the provincial system and a vigorous development within that system of the self-governing spirit.

By some contemporary observers the colonists were charged with cherishing the ideal of ultimate independence, and much was made of their violation of acts of Parliament, especially those relating to trade. Here and there, particularly in New England, men were said to dispute the validity of parliamentary statutes. Zealous royal officials were easily led to identify opposition to their own authority with disloyalty to the crown, and that

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charge was most frequently and naturally brought against New England, where the old independent Puritan ideals clashed most sharply with the prevailing English system in church and state. This charge of disloyalty to the mother-country was, however, vigorously repelled by the New-Englanders, who pointed to their sacrifices in the intercolonial wars and emphasized important elements of common feeling underlying their political and ecclesiastical differences.[*]

[* Chalmers, Revolt, I., 225, 315-317, 369; Penhallow, Wars of New England, 72-74; Dummer, Defence of the New England Charters; see also below, p. 188.]

Yet the charges of British officials had undoubtedly a certain basis. The political horizon of the colonists was hemmed in by the physical barriers which separated them from their fellow-subjects, so that they often displayed a lack of that broader loyalty which leads men to make sacrifices for objects not directly affecting their own interests or safety. It is true also that with this lack of interest in matters of more than purely local concern, there existed an intense desire to manage their provincial interests in their own way. This insistence on local autonomy was not peculiar to any group of colonies. It attracted most attention in New England; but it may be found also among the Quakers of Pennsylvania, the tobacco planters of Virginia, and the little slave-holding oligarchies of Barbadoes and South Carolina. Royal governors

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like Hunter pointed out the inherent inconsistency between this spirit of autonomy and the authority of the mother-country as understood by colonial administrators in England. The danger of independence which they sought to avert, though not immediate, was not altogether imaginary.[*]

[* Cf. N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 330, 340.]

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FOR a quarter-century after the revolution of 1689 English and colonial politics were largely influenced by the conflict of ecclesiastical parties. In England, and at one time or another in most of her colonies, church and state were united, and religion and politics were constantly reacting upon each other. In the ecclesiastical politics of the colonies during this period three phases are of prime historical importance: first, the gradual relaxation of the Puritan system in New England, particularly in Massachusetts; secondly, the effort of the aggressive Anglican party to extend over the colonies the ecclesiastical system of the mother-country, with its financial support of the established church and its discrimination against dissenters; and, finally, the conflict between clergy and laity within the ranks of the established church.

At the close of the seventeenth century the old Puritan order was still strongly intrenched in New England. Except in Rhode Island, the Congregational churches were generally recognized as entitled

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to public support; churches were built and ministers paid by taxes which were exacted from dissenters as well as from adherents or members. The church-membership qualification for voters had, indeed, been superseded by property qualifications, but the Puritan clergy still exerted a strong influence on the conduct of public affairs. Their advice was still asked on questions of policy; and the law, both in its making and in its administration, still expressed in large measure the opinions and ideals of the Puritan founders.

These general propositions are well illustrated in the history of Massachusetts in the years immediately following the revolution. The most important agent in securing the new charter and in determining the personnel of the new government was Increase Mather, a Congregational minister in active service. Phips, the first governor, had been recently received into a Congregational church. The lieutenant-governor, Stoughton, and most of his associates in the council, were thorough-going Puritans, who, after the recall of Phips, were charged for several years with the administration of the provincial government. The next governor, Bellomont, though himself an Anglican, thought it wise to attend one service weekly in a Congregational church. The Church of England had gained a foothold; but, from the Puritan point of view, it was still a peculiarly odious, dissenting sect.

One of the most marked characteristics of the

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old Puritan life was its strong belief in the presence and concrete manifestation in human affairs of supernatural forces. This intense supernaturalism was, of course, not peculiar to the Puritan; it was equally characteristic of the mediæval church, and in seventeenth-century Europe the conventional acceptance of supernatural theories was almost universal. Yet among the English Protestants of that day it was the Puritan sects with whom the conventional dogma was most likely to become a vital factor in the conduct of life. It was the persistence of this conviction which, at the beginning of the provincial era, made possible that great tragedy of New England history, the Salem witchcraft.[*]

[* See above, chap. ii.]

It is not easy to determine the effect which this tragedy and the part taken in it by the conservative leaders may have had upon the religious thought of New England. Yet it is certain that while Massachusetts was being brought into closer commercial and political relations with the outside world the exclusive supremacy of Puritan ideals was being seriously shaken. This can be seen first in lax or liberal movements within the church itself. The conditions of church-membership were relaxed so that the church could be entered without that thorough spiritual examination which the fathers had thought necessary. In Boston the new Brattle Street Church, organized in 1699, though accepting the substance

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of the old theology, adopted certain usages which the conservatives regarded as highly objectionable. The Scriptures might be read in the Anglican fashion, without comment; members might be admitted without any public statement of their experiences; and persons who were not full members of the church might be allowed to vote in the choice of a new minister. There was a long controversy between the leaders of this new movement and the conservatives represented by Increase and Cotton Mather.

Both parties were anxious to control the government of Harvard College, and Cotton Mather, finding that the liberals had gained the upper hand, began to interest himself in the new Connecticut college. Such men as Sewall and the Mathers frequently expressed misgivings regarding religious and social tendencies at variance with the old Puritan standards. In his Magnalia Christi, Cotton Mather recorded his opinion that, "The old spirit of New England hath been sensibly going out of the world, as the old saints in whom it was have gone; and instead thereof the spirit of the world, with a lamentable neglect of strict piety, has crept in upon the rising generation."[*]

[* Winsor, Memorial Hist. of Boston, II., chap. vi.; Mather, Magnalia Christi (ed. of 1853), II., 334; cf., below, chap. xviii.]

In those times of declining spiritual vigor the established churches of New England had to meet the growing activity of the dissenting bodies. Of

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these the most important were the Quakers, the Baptists, and the Anglicans. By the close of the seventeenth century each of these denominations was represented by a regularly organized church in Boston. In Rhode Island the Quakers and Baptists were probably the strongest bodies. Elsewhere in New England their numbers were relatively small, and they had to contend with strong prejudices. During the reign of Queen Anne, both the Connecticut and Massachusetts governments were complained of for unfriendly treatment of the Quakers. When, in 1708, the Quakers of Boston petitioned for leave to build a wooden meeting-house, Sewall opposed it, saying that he "would not have a hand in setting up their Devil Worship."[*]

[* Sewall, Diary, II., 232.]

Sewall and his contemporaries watched with particular anxiety the growth of the Anglican congregation worshipping at King's Chapel. This church had gained a foothold in Boston after the overthrow of the first charter; and after the revolution it grew pretty steadily, until during the first quarter of the eighteenth century it came to number several hundred adherents and a second church became necessary. Some of the rectors of King's Chapel were prominent figures in Boston life, and it gained some prestige from the special patronage of the crown. Lord Bellomont was a member of this congregation; and his successor, Dudley, though maintaining some relationship with the Congregationalists,

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also frequented the Anglican services, and for a time at least was thought to be in special sympathy with them. From time to time there were funerals of prominent social personages, at which Puritan sensibilities were disturbed by the use of the English burial service. The religious observance of Christmas was another Anglican usage against which Sewall repeatedly recorded his protest. In Rhode Island, especially in Newport, the Episcopal church gained considerable strength, and Connecticut had a small but aggressive Episcopal element, especially in the western counties.

One of the most dramatic incidents in the long-drawn-out struggle between Puritans and Anglicans in New England was the libel case of John Checkley, an Anglican bookseller in Boston, who in 1724 was tried by the superior court of Massachusetts, convicted of seditious libel, and sentenced to pay a heavy fine for an argumentative publication asserting the exclusive Episcopal authority as against Congregational ordination. This seems to have been the last attempt to check dissenting publications by legal process.

The most serious practical grievance of the dissenters in New England was the obligation imposed upon them of paying the town taxes for the support of the Congregational worship. This was the general rule outside of Rhode Island at the beginning of the eighteenth century; but some concessions had been made by Massachusetts. In the

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town of Swansea, annexed to Massachusetts in 1691 with other towns of the Plymouth Colony, the Baptists were in control and continued as before to appropriate their church taxes to the support of their own minister: this course was, however, distinctly exceptional. During Queen Anne's reign efforts were made by Anglicans to secure exemption from this obligation to support another communion, and they seem to have had some encouragement from Governor Dudley. In 1713 one of the Puritan ministers of Boston spoke "very fiercely against the Govr. and Council's meddling with suspension of Laws, respecting Church of England men not paying Taxes to the dissenting Ministers." In this particular instance, an Episcopal resident of Braintree had refused to pay his church tax, and the matter ended by the levy of an execution on his property. The Quakers also presented repeated complaints of the injustice done them in New England by "priest's rates." In 1723 the Privy Council took action upon a case in which Quaker town officers had been imprisoned because of their refusal to collect taxes for a Congregational minister; the decision of the Massachusetts authorities was reversed, and it was ordered that the tax should be remitted and the assessors released.[*] During this decade a number of events contributed

[* Backus, New England, I., chaps. x., xi.; Sewall, Diary, I., 430, 493: II., 58, 59, 233, 337, 379, 387: Slafter, John Checkley, passim, especially the Memoir (Prince Society, Publications).]

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to enhance the prestige of the Anglican party. In 1722, Timothy Cutler, president of Yale College, and some other prominent Congregational ministers of Connecticut, announced their conversion to the Church of England, and soon after Cutler became the rector of one of the Episcopal churches in Boston. In 1725, when the Massachusetts Congregationalists proposed to hold a synod, they met with a protest from the Anglican party, which was sustained by the bishop of London and by the law-officers of the crown. By the close of the decade special acts were passed, both in Massachusetts and Connecticut, partially relieving the Anglicans, Quakers, and Baptists from the necessity of contributing to the Congregational churches. The obligation still continued for Anglicans who had no local church of their own; but wherever an Episcopal church had been organized those who attended its services were entitled to reclaim for their minister their share of the local church taxes. The separation of church and state and the equal rights of all religious bodies did not receive complete recognition until long after the War of Independence, but the old Puritan ideal of a single church imposing its fixed standards upon the community had been hopelessly broken down.[*]

[* Massachusetts Bay, Acts and Resolves, II., 461, 494, 619, 783, 1022; Talcott Papers, I., 53, 65; cf. Cobb, Religious Liberty in America, 269-271.]

Once fairly established, the Anglican clergy and

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laity became an important factor in New England politics. In Connecticut and Massachusetts they formed a small but aggressive loyalist group, who, as members of the state Church of England, valued also their political connection with the mother-country. When hard pressed by the dominant church of their new home, they looked for encouragement and support to the crown and its official representatives in America, with whom they felt it their duty to stand for order in church and state. In 1724 the Anglicans of Newport united in a declaration to the king which, though perhaps too extreme to be wholly representative, does fairly illustrate the political tendencies of their fellowchurchmen in New England. They assured the king that, "The religious and loyal principles of obedience and non-resistance are upon all suitable occasions strongly asserted and inculcated upon your Majesty's good subjects of this Church."[*]

[* Memorial quoted in Palfrey, New England, IV., 470.]

Nowhere except in New England did the established Church of England have to struggle for bare tolerance or equal rights at the hands of a rival church supported by colonial law. Elsewhere the Anglicans were more ambitious in their demands; their ideal was the legal establishment of their church in the various provinces, and, ultimately, the close adjustment of this provincial church to the English diocesan system.

Before 1689 the Church of England was not definitely

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established by law in any of the continental colonies, except Virginia, though there were some Anglican churches in Maryland and a strong Anglican element in South Carolina. In North Carolina and the northern proprietary provinces, the field was almost exclusively occupied by various sects of Protestant dissenters. During the next twenty-five years, however, there was a marked extension of Anglican influence in all of these colonies.

One of the important leaders in this movement was Henry Compton, who was bishop of London for nearly forty years, beginning his official career under Charles II. and dying near the close of Queen Anne's reign. At his accession to office there was a well-recognized tradition that the colonies were under the special guardianship of the bishop of London, and in the royal province of Virginia no minister could be preferred to any benefice without his certificate. This responsibility for the colonies was expressly asserted by Compton soon after his accession; and in 1685 he secured a modification of the instructions to the royal governors by which his episcopal authority was to take effect "as far as conveniently may be," reserving to the governor the rights of collation to benefices, issuing of marriage licenses, and the probate of wills. Henceforth, also, no school-master coming from England was to keep a school without the bishop's license.[*]

[* Cross, Anglican Episcopate and the Am. Cols., chaps. i., ii.; Anderson, Church of England in the Cols., II., 341.]

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During the reign of James II., Compton's independent course in English affairs led to his suspension; but after the revolution he resumed his office and at once became a member of the Committee of Trade and Plantations. In the same year he inaugurated an important new policy by appointing James Blair as his representative or commissary in Virginia. The commissary had a small part of the episcopal authority; he was to act as counsellor for the clergy of the province and to hold visitations or inquiries into the conduct of ministers, and in rare instances he might suspend a delinquent clergyman. Blair was an aggressive Scotchman of some ability and learning, who had already been in Virginia for several years. He took an active interest in politics as well as in religion, and quarrelled with the successive governors of the province. Yet he undoubtedly advanced the interests of the church by working for reform in the manners of the clergy, though he was conservative in the exercise of disciplinary authority, making only two suspensions in thirty-five years. Under his influence the supply of ministers was increased also, so that vacancies became much less common. Blair's greatest work was the founding, in 1693, of William and Mary College, which he looked upon as an important agency for the religious as well as the intellectual welfare of the province.[*]

[* Motley, Commissary James Blair (Johns Hopkins University Studies, XIX., No. 10).]

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A more important figure than Blair in the annals of the colonial church was Thomas Bray, appointed by Compton as commissary for Maryland on the request of the provincial clergy. Before assuming the duties of this office Bray interested himself in the establishment of parochial libraries for the colonies, and though he made only a short visit to Maryland he had an important influence in securing the legal establishment of the Church of England in that province.[*]

[* Mereness, Maryland, 438.]

During the eighteenth century commissaries were sent to several of the colonies, but none of them deserve to rank with these first two holders of that office. They frequently became involved in serious conflicts with the civil authorities, and were rarely able to maintain an effective discipline over the clergy.

Probably the most important and best-known single agency for promoting the interests of the Anglican church in America was the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. This organization came into existence largely through the efforts of Dr. Bray, who had previously been interested in a similar organization known as the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, often called the Venerable Society, was chartered in 1701, with the patronage and active co-operation of the bishop of London and other prominent prelates.

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The new organization entered at once upon active missionary work in America. During the years 1702-1704 two of its agents, George Keith, a former Quaker, and John Talbot, made a long tour of the colonies, beginning at Boston and going as far south as North Carolina. The missionaries sent out by the society varied greatly in character and efficiency. Some of them were lacking in tact, and some brought scandal upon the church by gross personal misconduct, as, for instance, in North Carolina. Others were men of marked ability and fine Christian spirit.[*]

[* Anderson, Church of England in the Cols., II., 550-578, III., 24-76, 220-234; Prot. Episc. Hist. Soc., Collections, I., especially Keith, Journal.]

Another important influence at work for the Church of England in the colonies was that of the provincial governors and other royal officers in the colonies. The aggressive royal governors of this period--such men as Nicholson, Fletcher, Bellomont, and Spotswood--were also strong churchmen. Nicholson in particular was widely known as a zealous and disinterested friend of the church, to which he contributed considerable sums of money. The same thing was true of such royal agents as Randolph and Quarry. Conversely, the aggressive churchmen were usually advocates of closer imperial control.

Under these favoring circumstances, there was naturally a decided increase in the number of

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Anglican churches and adherents in nearly all the colonies. For the first time there appeared regularly organized Episcopal churches in New York and New Jersey. In 1695 the first Episcopal church was built in Philadelphia, and soon assumed an important place in the life of the Quaker colony. In North Carolina there had been no Episcopal ministers or churches before 1700, but in the next decade the Anglican party was able for a time to shape the ecclesiastical policy of the province.[*]

[* Anderson, Church of England in the Cols., II., 434-441; Weeks, Religious Development in N. C. (Johns Hopkins University Studies, X., Nos. 5, 6).]

With increased numbers and a growing sense of power, there came in several colonies a strong movement for the legal establishment of the English church. The movement was least successful in the middle colonies where the dissenting Protestant sects were in a large majority. In New York, however, Governor Fletcher secured from the assembly an act under which a few Episcopal churches were supported by public taxation.[*]

[* Ecclesiastical Records, New York, II., 1073-1079; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 334.]

In the south the new movement towards establishment was general and in form at least successful. The first to act was Maryland. Here the proprietary governments had before the revolution been called upon to provide a tax for the support of the Anglican clergy. In reply the proprietor declared that at least three-fourths of the population

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were Protestant dissenters of various sects and that a tax on them for the support of another worship would be unfair. The first assembly under the royal government took a different view. By a statute of 1692 the Church of England was established and the vestries were authorized to levy taxes for the support of their ministers. Another act of 1696, which superseded the earlier legislation, having been opposed by the Quakers and Catholics, was disallowed by the crown, ostensibly because it contained some irrelevant matter. During his short visit to the province in 1700, Bray secured the passage of a new establishment act, which, however, contained an extreme clause requiring the use of the common prayer in every place of public worship. This act also was antagonized by the Quakers and Catholics; in anticipation of another royal veto, a new bill, without the objectionable clauses, was accepted by the Maryland assembly and became law in 1702. Under this law the Anglican church retained its position as an establishment until the American Revolution.[*]

[* Mereness, Maryland, 130, 436-441.]

The Anglicans of North Carolina had been almost entirely passive until 1699, when Henderson Walker took office as deputy governor of the province. Walker was an aggressive churchman, and under his leadership the church party, by "a great deal of care and management," secured control of the assembly. In 1701 an act was passed establishing

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the church and authorizing the levy of a poll-tax for the support of the clergy, and under its provisions three churches were built; but the next assembly was controlled by the Quakers and their allies, and shortly afterwards the establishment act was disallowed by the proprietors. For the next twelve years there was a constant conflict between churchmen and dissenters, culminating in the petty civil war known as the Cary rebellion. The vestry act of 1715 settled the issue nominally in favor of the establishment; but the results attained were small, and many years later a governor of the province complained to the assembly that there were "but two places where divine service is regularly performed."[*]

[* Weeks, Religious Development in N. C., and his Church and State in N. C. (Johns Hopkins University Studies, X., Nos. 5, 6, and XI., Nos. 5, 6).]

In South Carolina the Anglican influence was stronger than in the northern colony, and as early as 1698 provision was made by the assembly for the support of an Episcopal minister in Charleston. In 1702, Sir Nathaniel Johnson, a former governor of the Leeward Islands, who on the accession of William and Mary had proved his loyalty to the Stuarts by resigning his post, was appointed governor by the proprietors. Like most high Tories of that day, whether in England or America, Johnson was also an extreme churchman, and under his leadership a church act was passed in 1704 which divided the

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province into six parishes, and allowed the minister of each parish a salary of £50 out of the public treasury. A provision of this act regarding the discipline of the clergy was objectionable to the bishop of London, and in 1706 it was annulled by the crown; but in the same year a new establishment act was passed without the obnoxious clause and became the permanent law of the province.[*]

[* McCrady, South Carolina under Proprietary Government, chaps. xiv., xviii., xix.]

The simple establishment of the Anglican church was not enough to satisfy its more zealous adherents. In some instances they followed the example of the English Tories and demanded legislation still further discriminating against the dissenters. Even in the revolution settlement of 1689 the English dissenters had only been granted a bare toleration, and they were still excluded from public offices, except so far as they chose to qualify themselves by occasionally receiving the sacrament according to the Anglican rites. During the reign of Queen Anne the high-church party was particularly aggressive, and after some unsuccessful attempts finally carried, in 1711, the Occasional Conformity Act, imposing heavy penalties on dissenters who attempted to evade the legal tests. Three years later the so-called Schism Act was passed, imposing severe penalties upon any one, with a few clearly defined exceptions, who should keep a school

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or engage in teaching without a bishop's license and an agreement to conform to the Church of England.[*] With this intolerant spirit prevailing in the church at home, it is not strange that similar measures were attempted in the colonies. In 1707, Governor Cornbury, of New York, undertook to punish two Presbyterian ministers for preaching without a license; but in this case the ministers were protected by the jury.[**] The unsuccessful attempt of the Maryland assembly to compel the use of the English prayer-book has already been noted.

[* 10 Anne, chaps. v., vi.; 13 Anne, chap. vii.]
[** N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 1186.]

The controversy in the Carolinas took on a much more serious character, and nearly resulted in the overthrow of the proprietary government. In the same year, 1704, in which the first general church act was passed for South Carolina, the high-church party obtained a law providing that no one should sit in the assembly without having received the sacrament according to the Anglican rite. This measure was conceived in the same spirit as the religious tests at home, and it was brought forward in America just at the time when the occasional conformity bill was being urged in Parliament. It is at least possible that a similar measure was enacted in North Carolina, though the evidence is incomplete. At any rate, the dissenters in both the Carolinas were now thoroughly aroused, agents were sent to England, and through the influence of

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the House of Lords, where the extreme churchmen were still in the minority, the law was annulled.[*] In the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania the church party was not in a position to secure an establishment and it remained always in a small minority. Yet at times this minority was a decidedly aggressive and important element in provincial politics. At the beginning of the eighteenth century its leaders were hostile to the proprietary government, and did what they could to discredit it by bringing out sharply two points which caused special embarrassment to the responsible Quaker leaders: one was the unwillingness of the Quakers to provide adequate measures for defence; the other was their refusal either to take or administer oaths. Harassed by these attacks, moderate Quakers were even ready to consider the possible advantage of leaving the government in the hands of moderate churchmen. Penn himself held the bishop of London largely responsible for the agitation on the question of oaths, and referred to him as "the great blower-up of these coals." Thus in the middle as well as in the southern colonies the antagonism of churchmen and dissenters became an important phase of provincial politics.[**]

[* See above, p. 60.]
[** Penn-Logan Correspondence, I., 278, 282; II., 276, 420.]

The adherents of the Anglican church were by no means free from dissensions within their own ranks. In church as well as in state the spirit of local

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antagonism asserted itself against external authority, and the Old-World jealousy between laity and clergy appeared also in the American provinces, especially in the colonies where the Church of England was established. Sometimes, on the question of financial support for the clergy, indifferent Anglicans would even join hands with the dissent ers. Two of the most practical of these subjects of controversy were the method of engaging ministers and the maintenance of discipline over the clergy.

The general rule in an Anglican province like Virginia was that the parishioners had the right of selecting or presenting a minister, who should then be formally inducted into his office. A clergyman once presented and inducted was established for life and could not be removed by his parishioners. This arrangement was unsatisfactory to the people, who preferred to keep the matter under their control; and therefore, instead of regularly presenting a minister, they preferred to enter into yearly agreements with him regarding his service and his compensation. By the end of the seventeenth century this usage had developed into a serious abuse, at least from the clerical point of view.[*]

[* Perry, Papers Relating to the Church in Virginia, 127, 132; of. Jones, Present State of Virginia, 104.]

The question of ecclesiastical discipline, especially in the case of ministers regularly inducted, was peculiarly difficult in the colonies, because there was no resident bishop and the disciplinary authority

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of the commissaries was generally ineffective. This led to various efforts on the part of the laity to take the matter into their own hands. Thus, in Virginia, the governor and council were constituted a court for the trial of ecclesiastical offences. Generally, however, proposals of this kind were vigorously and successfully resisted by the clergy. In Maryland there were serious complaints of the immorality of the clergy; and during Queen Anne's reign the assembly passed a bill establishing a lay court for the trial of delinquent ministers, who, in case of conviction, could be removed from office. The bill was condemned by the clergy as tending to the "Presbyterian form of ministers and lay elders," and the governor withheld his consent. The project was not, however, abandoned: in 1714 the governor refused the request of the vestries to discipline a delinquent clergyman; a bill to recognize the authority of the bishop's commissaries was then defeated, and a few years later another bill was introduced for the organization of a lay court. Again, however, the clerical influence prevailed, and no real settlement of the question was reached until near the close of the colonial era. Reference has been made to a similar attempt in South Carolina at the very height of the high-church movement, which was defeated by the opposition of the bishop of London.[*]

[* Hening, Statutes, III., 289; Mereness, Maryland, 441 et seq.; cf. Cross, Anglican Episcopate and the Am. Cols., 71 et seq.]

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By the beginning of the eighteenth century the opinion was widely held both in England and America that the true solution for the problem of the colonial church would be found in the appointment of resident American bishops. There are a few earlier references to the subject, but the most earnest advocates of the plan were the members and missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, including Thomas Bray. In 1705 a petition from Burlington, New Jersey, signed by fourteen clergymen asked for the appointment of a suffragan bishop, and this proposal was approved by Bishop Compton. Governor Hunter, of New York, was interested in the project, and in 1712 the Society went so far as to provide a house for a bishop of Burlington. At about this time an effort was made to gauge colonial sentiment on the subject. Bishop Kennett, for instance, wrote to Colman, a Congregational minister in Massachusetts, expressing the hope that "your Churches would not be jealous," "they being out of our Line, and therefore beyond the Cognizance of any Overseers to be sent from hence."

At the close of Queen Anne's reign there seemed some reason to expect that the project might be carried out. The queen expressed her approval, and shortly before her death a bill was draughted for the organization of a colonial episcopate. The new king, George I., was soon asked by the Venerable Society to establish four colonial dioceses, two for

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the islands and two for the continental colonies, the seats of the latter to be respectively at Burlington, in New Jersey, and Williamsburg, in Virginia. Nothing came of the proposal, though the general idea of a colonial episcopate was discussed at intervals during the remainder of the colonial era. In the later stages of this discussion, on the eve of the Revolution, there was some anxiety, especially in New England, lest a colonial bishop might not content himself with a purely spiritual jurisdiction over the churches of his own communion. This ecclesiastical controversy became finally one of the minor factors in the alienation of the American colonists from the mother-country.[*]

[* Cross, Anglican Episcopate and the Am. Col., chap. iv.; N.&nbps;Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 310, 316, 473; Anderson, Church of England in the Cols., III., 74; Jones, Present State of Virginia (ed. of 1865), 110; cf. Howard, Preliminaries of the Revolution (Am. Nation, VIII.), chap. xii.]

Thus the period of William and Anne shows, on the whole, a marked relaxation of the old Puritan system in Massachusetts and a general advance on the part of the Anglicans. Nevertheless, the self-governing instinct of the colonists showed itself in the conduct of the church as well as of the state, and the attempt to organize an effective episcopal jurisdiction in America failed, partly, perhaps, because of colonial jealousy, but more probably because of the apathy of the home government.

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THE revolution of 1689 was not merely an important event in the constitutional history of the British Isles and of the English colonies; it also exerted a decisive influence on their international relations. Under the later Stuarts the foreign policy of the English government had been shifting and uncertain. The aggressive measures of Louis XIV. had awakened anxiety for the balance of power in Europe, and his harsh treatment of his Huguenot subjects was resented by the strongly Protestant spirit of the English nation; the spirit of commercial rivalry was also growing. These considerations would naturally have led to an English alliance with the Hapsburg monarchies of Spain and Austria on the one side, and the northern Protestant states on the other, against the expanding and menacing power of France; and such a policy seemed to be indicated by the Triple Alliance of 1668, when England combined with Holland and Sweden to defend the Spanish Netherlands against French aggression.

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The consistent carrying out of this policy was prevented chiefly by two considerations: the first was the commercial jealousy between England and Holland, which still interfered somewhat with their political co-operation; the second was the peculiar relation which existed between the last two Stuarts and the king of France. Charles and James were both Catholics, and both desired for the old faith--first, toleration, and after that, if possible, the supremacy in England. Politically in accord with the traditions of their family, they desired also to secure for themselves, not perhaps absolute power, but at least greater freedom from parlia mentary restraints. Both in their political and in their ecclesiastical policies they counted upon the support of Louis XIV.; and the influence of these sympathies was shown in the secret treaty of Dover in 1670 and the English co-operation with France against the Dutch in 1672.

The accession of William and Mary to the English throne brought a decided change of foreign policy. William III. was the head of the European alliance against Louis XIV. in the new continental war; and though the English people were less interested than their king in the continental question of the balance of power, Louis XIV. virtually forced them to join the alliance when he championed the cause of their exiled king. The substitution of William and Mary for James II., intended to secure parliamentary liberties and the Protestant faith,

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was now challenged by a foreign king, who represented precisely those tendencies in religion and politics which the nation had rejected. Not only was Louis XIV. the most striking embodiment of absolute monarchy, but he was also regarded since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes as the arch-enemy of the Protestant cause. He now contributed his money, his fleets, and his soldiers to bring about the restoration to the English throne of the Catholic Stuart king. The eight years of war which followed meant, therefore, a real struggle for national independence against foreign interference.

The breach between England and France in the Old World brought into direct conflict their subjects in America. During the previous decade the rival colonies had attempted local wars, from which they had been held back by the conservative influence of their respective governments at home. James II. was sincerely desirous of defending English interests in the New World, but opposed to aggressive measures which might disturb his friendly relations with Louis XIV. Nevertheless, Englishmen and Frenchmen had already come to blows, and each suspected the other of instigating Indian attacks upon the frontiers. Thus the American war, though partly a result of the European conflict, was also in large measure the natural outgrowth of American conditions. A brief survey of these conditions is therefore essential.

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The French and the English came into contact and competition at a large number of widely scattered points. To the far north the rights of the British Hudson's Bay Company were disputed by the French; and in 1686, three years before the formal declaration of war, a French party captured three of the British posts. In Newfoundland the settlements of English fishermen had an offset in the French post of Placentia. Similar close contacts were to be found in the West Indies: among the small islands of the Leeward group, Nevis, Antigua, and Montserrat were British, and St. Christopher partly French and partly English; in the Windward group, Barbadoes was British and Martinique French; and the new British colony of Jamaica was exposed to the attacks of French marauders from the neighboring islands. The French islands were few and small, but they became important centres for privateering and piratical enterprise.[*]

[* Parkman, Frontenac (ed. of 1878), 132-134; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IX., 801; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, p. 108; for a discussion of this subject from the point of view of French colonization, see Thwaites, France in America (Am. Nation, VII.), chaps. iii., vi.]

For the present-day student of the American nation, the chief interest of these international rivalries lies in the contest for supremacy on the continent of North America, which, in the closing years of the seventeenth century, took place chiefly on the frontiers of New England and New York.

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The boundary between Acadia and New England had never been accurately defined. The English establishments in 1688 extended eastward a little beyond the Kennebec to the frontier fort of Pemaquid; but a few miles away, at the mouth of the Penobscot, was the half-savage establishment of the French Baron de St. Castin. Farther to the north and east were French trading-posts and settlements on the St. John's River and the Bay of Fundy. The competition here was quite as much for Indian trade as for territory. Each party tried to conciliate the tribes who occupied the upper courses of the rivers. On the whole, the French were more successful, chiefly through their political agents the Jesuit missionaries, although they owed something also to the blunders of their English rivals.

At the outbreak of the revolution of 1689, these Abenakis, or "Eastern Indians," were bitterly hostile to the English, and had already made a number of raids on the frontier. Such an Indian war was particularly dangerous to the northern villages of Maine and New Hampshire, but there were few places even in the old Massachusetts Bay colony which could count themselves entirely safe. Since the Indian raids were thought to be largely instigated by French missionaries, no permanent solution seemed possible without the expulsion of the French from Acadia and Canada.[*]

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 45-47; Sewall, Diary, I., 223-227.]

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On the New York frontier the situation was quite different. Though Dutch and English settlements had spread beyond Albany to Schenectady on the Mohawk, they were still distinctly outposts at a long distance from any other considerable places. North of Albany the English were separated from the French by a great expanse of wilderness extending to the St. Lawrence. The chief difficulty here arose from the western ambitions of the two nations, and especially their competition for the fur trade. From the beginning of French colonization in America the westward movement had been one of its most marked characteristics; French missionaries and traders early made their way by the Ottawa River to the Great Lakes, and established trading-posts and missions at the Straits of Mackinac and on the Illinois River. In 1673 Fort Frontenac was built at the outlet of Lake Ontario to strengthen the French interest in the west, especially as against the Iroquois.[*]

[* Schuyler, Colonial New York, I., 426-425; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IX., 95-114; cf. Tyler, England in America, chap. xviii., and Thwaites, France in America, chap. iv. (Am. Nation, IV. and VII.)]

Before the English conquest of the Hudson valley, what the French had to fear in this quarter was not so much European rivalry as the hostility of the Iroquois, who lived in the Mohawk valley and in the region south of the lower lakes. Alienated

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from the French as early as 1609, they soon formed an alliance with the Dutch, with whom they carried on an important trade, especially in fire-arms. With these European weapons the Iroquois soon became the most formidable of the Indian tribes; they nearly exterminated some of their neighbors, and extended their ravages among the tribes of the upper lakes and the Mississippi valley, many of whom were the allies of the French.

The hostile attitude of the Iroquois blocked effectually French movement south of the lower lakes, and disturbed trade with the western Indians; vigorous efforts were therefore made to conciliate or overawe these formidable antagonists. Here, as in Acadia, their most effective political agents were Jesuit missionaries, by whose efforts some of the Iroquois were converted to the Catholic faith and placed in settlements on the St. Lawrence under French protection. From time to time military expeditions were undertaken to punish and overawe the hostile members of the league, but they failed to produce permanent results.[*]

[* Parkman, Frontenac, passim.]

In November, 1686, the kings of France and England agreed to the so-called treaty of neutrality for America, and the governors on both sides were exhorted to refrain from hostile measures. Commissioners were appointed to adjust the pending boundary disputes, but no final agreement was reached. Even James II., with all his desire for

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friendly relations with France, insisted that the Five Nations were British subjects and entitled to his protection.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., III., 503; IX., 330, 416; Mémoires des Commissaires (Paris, 1755), II., 81-89.]

Hence the English governors of New York made active efforts to maintain and strengthen their hold upon the Iroquois, especially the aggressive Governor Thomas Dongan, the Irish Catholic representative of the Duke of York from 1683 to 1688. Some of the Iroquois had been induced to acknowledge themselves as under the protection of the Duke of York and King Charles, and the Five Nations as a whole were claimed as British subjects. The English tried also to develop their trade with the western Indians, and with so much prospect of success that the French were thoroughly alarmed. An angry correspondence took place on these subjects between the rival governors, and in 1687 two trading parties sent out by Dongan were attacked and captured by the commandant of the French fort at Mackinac. In the same year Denonville commanded a Canadian expedition against the Senecas, which was denounced by Dongan as an invasion of British juris diction. Some Indian villages were destroyed, but the chief practical result was to provoke the Iroquois to measures of savage retaliation.[*]

[* Parkman, Frontenac (ed. of 1878), 92; Colden, Five Indian Nations, pt. i., chap. iii., N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., III., 347, 363, 436, 520, IX., 318, 336, 357-369, 405.]

Such in brief was the situation in America when

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in April, 1689, the formal outbreak of war in Europe closed the unsatisfactory chapter of diplomatic controversy and brought the rival nations to the trial of arms. In the war of the Grand Alliance, France stood almost alone against a formidable combination, including not merely the Protestant states of England, Holland, and Germany, but also the Hapsburg monarchies of Spain and Austria. Two of England's allies, the Dutch and the Spaniards, had also possessions in America. There was little practical co-operation between them in the American war, but it was worth something to the Carolina settlers to be relieved from the fear of Spanish invasions.

The great resources of France enabled Louis XIV. to meet the allies on equal terms; and indeed the military advantages at the outset were on his side, for during the first two years of the war the English government was handicapped by disturbances in Scotland and Ireland. The first important naval engagement, the battle of Beachy Head in 1690, seemed also to indicate the superiority of the French on the sea, even against a combination of Dutch and English fleets. It was not until 1692 that the English naval victory at La Hague turned the scales in favor of England, and even then the English preponderance was not decisive. The long-continued wars also imposed upon the English people unaccustomed financial burdens and strained their resources to the utmost.

The pressure of the European war seriously

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limited England's efficiency in defence of its American interests. British fleets were, indeed, sent to the West Indies, to co-operate in their protection and in offensive operations against the French, but they accomplished little of real importance. A few British regulars were stationed in the West Indies and in New York, and from time to time money and military supplies were sent. On the whole, however, the action of the British government upon the military situation in America was ineffective and of subordinate importance. The most important enterprise of the war in North America, the attack on Quebec in 1690, was undertaken by inexperienced colonists without assistance from the home government.

A comparison of the resources of the rival colonies themselves seems at first sight to show a decisive advantage on the side of the English. In population and in wealth they far exceeded their French competitors. Even if we include only the colonies of New England and New York, which were most directly affected by the war, the English still had a decided preponderance. The comparatively large proportion of regular soldiers sent to Canada did not offset the English advantage in population.

Yet on some points the French showed decided superiority: they had better trained and more efficient leaders, a more effective because more centralized political administration, and more capacity for co-operation with their Indian allies. On the

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outbreak of the war the French government again sent out, to replace Denonville in the government of Canada, the famous Count Frontenac, a trained soldier and a daring commander, yet not reckless of his military resources. His previous service gave him a good knowledge of Canadian conditions, and he was remarkably effective in his dealings with the Indians. The increased prestige with which he now assumed office made him somewhat more independent of local antagonisms and more nearly master of the situation. No British representative on the continent could be compared with him for a moment in the essential qualities of leadership. He had also some able subordinates, such as his successor, Callières, then governor of Montreal, and such effective partisan leaders as Villieu and Iberville. To oppose this chieftain and his lieutenants the English had plenty of daring and energetic men, but no able general, and few officers really trained to lead in the serious enterprises of war.[*]

[* Parkman, Frontenac; Lorin, Le Comte de Frontenac.]

Even if a leader like Frontenac had appeared on the English side, he would have been seriously hampered by the loose political organization of the colonies. During the first two years of the war, New England and New York, which had to bear the brunt of the French attack, were without definitely settled governments, and suffered from the confusion incident to radical changes in government.

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In New York the situation was particularly serious; at Albany the local civil and military officers organized themselves in a convention which for several months maintained its independence of the Leisler government at New York.[*]

[* Doc. Hist. of N. Y., II., 80, 147.]

After the new constitutional arrangements of 1689-1692 were worked out, there was still no effective concentration of military authority, though some efforts were made in that direction. Sir William Phips received a commission, not only as governor of Massachusetts, but as commander-in-chief of all the New England militia; and Governor Fletcher, of New York, was given a similar authority in Connecticut and the Jerseys, besides holding for two years the king's commission as governor of Pennsylvania. Both governors met with resistance in the colonies and were unable to enforce the authority thus conferred. At different times during the war other methods of securing co-operation were attempted. In 1690 a convention of the northern colonies was held in New York and plans were made for:what proved to be an unsuccessful movement against Canada. In 1693, Governor Fletcher called a meeting of commissioners from the different colonies to meet at New York, but it was poorly attended. It called upon the various colonial governments to contribute definite sums of money or quotas of militia. A few contributions were received; but the final results were unsatisfactory and Fletcher declared

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that the English colonies were as badly divided as Christian and Turk.[*]

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, p. 572, 1693-1696, pp. 28, 63; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., III., 855-860; IV., 29-227, passim; Doc. Hist. of N. Y., II., 239.]

Under these conditions decisive operations were hardly to be expected on either side. The resources of Canada, though on the whole efficiently organized, were insufficient for large offensive operations, and the English failed to use effectively their advantages in population and wealth. A few large operations were planned on both sides, some of which were seriously attempted, only to end in humiliating failure; others were abandoned almost at the outset as impracticable. The military enterprises of this war were, therefore, generally on a small scale, taking the form of mere raids on the enemy's frontier, with the help usually of Indian allies.

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WAR was formally declared between England and France in April, 1689, but in some of the colonies it was not proclaimed until several months later, and the most important operations of that year were in the West Indies. There the advantage was temporarily with the French, and in the summer of 1689 they seized the English part of St. Christopher. Urgent appeals were made by the islanders for an English fleet, but none could be sent out until the following year. Fortunately, the new governor of the Leeward Islands, Sir Christopher Codrington, a man of unusual ability, made an energetic defence, and no further losses followed.[*]

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 21, 111, 118-123.]

On the North American main-land the chief feature of the year was a series of Indian raids on the New England frontier, where, during the previous winter, Andros had sent an expedition against the Maine Indians. He established a number of frontier posts extending as far north as Pemaquid; but on the fall of his government these garrisons were

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either recalled altogether or reduced, and the Indians were encouraged to renew their raids. In June they attacked and ruined the village of Cocheco, near Dover, New Hampshire, killing or capturing a large number of the inhabitants. In August an Indian party, led by the French Baron de St. Castin, captured the fort at Pemaquid and massacred the inhabitants of the adjacent village. These disasters aroused the government of Massachusetts. A considerable force was raised and sent to the frontier, Casco (Portland) was relieved from a siege by the Indians, and an unsuccessful retaliating expedition was undertaken by the well-known Indian fighter Benjamin Church.[*]

[* Drake, Border Wars of New England, chaps. ii.-v.; Andros Tracts, III., 21-38; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IX., 440; Church, History of the Eastern Expeditions (ed. of 1867), 1-37.]

The French also suffered seriously from Indian attacks. The Iroquois, thoroughly exasperated by Denonville's attacks, made a succession of raids on the French settlements of the upper St. Lawrence. At Lachine, in the immediate vicinity of Montreal, several hundred persons were butchered by the Indians or carried into captivity. When Frontenac arrived in the province, two months later, he reported that the colonists were still terrified and dejected by the blow. Meanwhile, Callières, the governor of Montreal, proposed an elaborate plan for the conquest of New York by a land expedition from Montreal co-operating with a naval force sent

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out from France. This plan, though accepted in substance by the king and embodied in instructions to Frontenac, was found impracticable at that time.

Frontenac now undertook to bring the Iroquois to terms by a vigorous show of force, and to check the English offensive through a series of border raids. In the winter and spring of 1690 three war parties were sent out against the English frontier, each composed of Canadians and Indians and led by French officers. The first blow fell on Schenectady in February, 1690, and the capture of the post was followed by a wholesale butchery of the inhabitants. The sense of horror which this outrage produced in the neighboring town of Albany was strongly expressed a few days later by Mayor Peter Schuyler: "The Cruelties committed at said Place no Penn can write nor Tongue expresse: the women bigg with Childe rip'd up and the Children alive throwne into the flames, and there heads dash'd in pieces against the Doors and windows." The two other parties attacked and destroyed the village of Salmon Falls, in New Hampshire, and the fort and village at Casco (Portland) on the Maine coast. From various points on the long, exposed frontier news of similar disasters were sent to the government at Boston.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IX., 408-435, 466-473: Andros Tracts, III., 114; Sewall, Diary, I., 311-321; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, p. 200; on this war, see also Thwaites, France in America (Am. Nation, VII.), chaps. ii., vi.]

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[Map Facing This Page: Intercolonial Wars (1689-1713)]

These losses by land, accompanied by others on the sea, suffered by New England merchantmen at the hands of French privateers, soon made evident the necessity of more aggressive measures. The first important offensive movement on the English side was undertaken by the New-Englanders. During the winter and early spring of 1690 they had been preparing an expedition against Port Royal, which was a base for French privateering operations as well as for raids against the English frontier. For this purpose a fleet of about seven vessels was collected and an infantry force of about four hundred and fifty men. The command was given to Sir William Phips, himself a native of the Maine frontier, a daring and adventurous sea-captain, but without special fitness for military command. The fleet sailed from Boston, April 28, entered Port Royal harbor about ten days later, and the French commander yielded almost at once. The settlement was plundered, and the Puritan feeling showed itself in some wanton destruction of Catholic church property. The inhabitants of Port Royal and the surrounding country were then compelled to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary.[*]

[* Parkman, Frontenac (ed. of 1878), 236-243; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IX., 474; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 240, 275.]

This conquest of Acadia was a comparatively simple matter, but before Phips's return to Boston the colonists had planned the far more serious enterprise

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of taking Quebec and completely expelling the French from Canada. At the congress in New York in the spring of 1690 representatives of New York, Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut arranged for a land force to move northward by way of Lake Champlain against Montreal. To the proposed movement by sea, the Massachusetts delegates would not pledge their colony; but after the capture of Port Royal it was determined to carry out that part of the plan also.

Definite quotas for the land expedition were assigned to Massachusetts, Connecticut, Plymouth, Maryland, and to New York, which was held responsible for about half of the total. After considerable disagreement, Fitz-John Winthrop, of Connecticut, was appointed by Leisler to command the expedition. When, however, the time came for the advance, it was found that the quotas had not been filled; the Iroquois allies also failed to perform their part; and the main expedition was finally abandoned, though a small volunteer force, under John Schuyler, gave some annoyance to Frontenac by attacking the French settlement of La Prairie, opposite Montreal.[*]

[* Doc. Hist. of N. Y., II., 237-288; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 193-196.]

In the mean time preparations had been going forward at Boston for the expedition against Quebec, and Phips's easy success at Port Royal led to his selection for this larger responsibility. The resources

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of the colony were strained to provide the necessary men and supplies. The fleet was composed of merchantmen and fishing-vessels, and the officers were generally untrained men. An unsuccessful effort was made to secure the co-operation of the home government, and finally, after numerous delays, the fleet left Boston harbor on August 9, 1690. No pilot had been provided for the St. Lawrence, and there was another long delay in the river, so that the fleet did not appear before Quebec until the middle of October. Phips at once sent a demand for immediate surrender, but the golden moment had passed.[*]

[* Parkman, Frontenac, chap. xii.; Hutchinson, Hist. of Mass. Bay, I., App.; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 240, 385, 415.]

Less than a week earlier Frontenac had received, at Montreal, his first intimation of a possible English attack on Quebec. Acting with a promptness and decision which appear in marked contrast with the conduct of the enemy, he hastened to Quebec, giving orders for the despatch of reinforcements. The defences of the city were strengthened, and when the messengers from Phips arrived, Frontenac treated 1 Parkman, Frontenac, chap. xiii.; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 377, 385, 415: N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IX., 455-461. the summons with studied contempt. In accordance with their plan for a joint attack, the English then landed about twelve hundred men a little below the city, but the expected co-operation of the fleet was not given; and in the mean time the garrison of Quebec was strengthened by the arrival

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of several hundred men from Montreal. After some indecisive skirmishing on land and an ineffective bombardment by the fleet, the landing force returned in confusion to the ships. After some hesitation it was decided to abandon the siege and return to Boston. The losses in action had been small on both sides, but the New-Englanders suffered severely from disease.[*]

[* Compare on this subject, Tyler, England in America, passim; Andrews, Colonial Self-Government, chap.ii (Am. Nation, IV.,V.).]

The expedition had involved Massachusetts in heavy loss, both of men and money, and the chief officers were severely criticised. Major Walley, the commander of the land forces, prepared a brief defence, naming the following reasons for the disappointment: "The land army's failing, the enemy's too timely intelligence, lyeing 3 weeks within 3 days' sail of the place, by reason whereof they had the opportunity to bring in the whole strength of their country, the shortness of our ammunition, our late setting out, our long passidge, and many sick in the army."[*]

[* Journal, in Hutchinson, Hist. of Mass. Bay., I., App.]

Frontenac appealed to his king for more aggressive measures. He suggested the employment of the royal navy in "punishing the insolence of these veritable and old parliamentarians of Boston; in storming them, as well as those of Manath [New York] in their dens, and conquering these two towns whereby would be secured the entire coast."

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For large enterprises of this kind, however, Louis XIV. was not then prepared.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IX., 461, 494.]

While preparations were being made in Boston for the unsuccessful expedition against Quebec, the British had won a substantial success in the West Indies. With the help of an English fleet St. Christopher was retaken, in 1690, and the French driven altogether from the island. The colonists hoped for the complete expulsion of the French from the West Indies, but the later years of the war were almost wholly lacking in events of decisive importance.[*]

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 186-195, 278, 291-294 303, 712, 1693-1696, pp. 39-43, 79, 86, 92.]

On the New England frontier the war consisted mainly of French and Indian raids like those of 1689 and 1690, and some rather ineffective retaliatory expeditions by the New-Englanders. In 1691 a new French governor, Villebon, was sent to Acadia; he easily recovered Port Royal and established him self at Naxouat, on the St. John's River. With the help of the Jesuits the Abenaki Indians were again aroused and led against the Maine frontier. York was destroyed in February, 1692, and a determined but unsuccessful attack was made upon Wells. There was also a series of small raids on the towns of central Massachusetts.[*]

[* Ibid., 1689-1692, 560; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IX., 526; Parkman, Frontenac, 347-356; Drake, Border Wars of New England, chaps. viii., ix.]

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In 1692, Phips returned from England with a commission under the new charter as governor of the enlarged province of Massachusetts. For the kind of military service now required he was better fitted than for the larger enterprise of 1690. Acting under royal instructions, he rebuilt the fort of Pemaquid, and in 1693 made a treaty there with representatives of the Abenaki Indians. Nevertheless, through the efforts of the daring French officer Villieu and the Jesuit missionary Thury, the warlike faction among the Indians regained the ascendency and the war began again. The Oyster River settlement, in New Hampshire, was destroyed in 1694, and a raid on Groton, about thirty miles from Boston, brought the war still nearer home to the people of Massachusetts.

In 1696, after a few minor raids on the Maine and New Hampshire borders, a French expedition commanded by Le Moyne d'Iberville again destroyed Pemaquid, and the New England fisheries were seriously depressed by Iberville's destruction of the English settlements on the eastern shore of Newfoundland. English attempts at retaliation were only partially successful: an expedition under Church plundered and burned the French settlement of Beaubassin at the head of the Bay of Fundy, but a subsequent attack on the French at Naxouat was repulsed. Massachusetts was so much discouraged by the situation in Acadia that the general court asked that the province be relieved

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from further expense in defence of Port Royal or the St. John's River. The closing months of the war were marked by murderous forays on the interior towns of Massachusetts. In March, 1697, occurred the Haverhill raid, made famous in colonial annals by the capture of Hannah Dustin and her subsequent escape by the killing of her captors. In February, 1698, several months after peace had been proclaimed in London, the Indians made another raid as far south as Andover. Taken individually, these French and Indian forays seem unimportant, but in the aggregate they constituted a serious check on the expansion of the colonies beyond the older settled areas.[*]

[* Sewall, Diary, I., 391; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1693-1696, pp. 149, 157; Drake, Border Wars of New England, chaps., xi.-xiv.; Parkman, Frontenac, 361-391; Hutchinson, Hist. of Mass, Bay (ed. of 1795), II., 88-104; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IX., 664.]

From time to time more ambitious enterprises were discussed on both sides. Phips was not discouraged by his failure at Quebec, and continued to urge the conquest of Canada. In the summer of 1693 a fleet under Sir Francis Wheeler arrived at Boston from the West Indies, under orders to co-operate with the Massachusetts government in another attack on Quebec, but its effective force had been much reduced by disease, and Phips argued that it was now too late to prepare for an attack that year. The plan was therefore abandoned, and

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during the remaining years of the war Quebec was not seriously threatened.[*]

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1693-1696, pp. 13, 31, 124.]

On the French side, the idea of a naval attack on Boston and New York repeatedly appears in the official correspondence, but without definite action, until the last year of the war, when a detailed plan was worked out for a strong fleet from France, under the command of the Marquis de Nesmond, to be joined on the Maine coast by a force of Indians and fifteen hundred troops from Canada. It was thought that Boston could be easily captured, and it was proposed afterwards to destroy the leading towns to the northward. The fleet actually set sail from France, but arrived too late to accomplish its purpose.[*]

[* Charlevoix, History of New France (Shea's trans.), V., 69-73; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IX., 659-661; Parkman, Frontenac, 382-384.]

On the New York frontiers the contest was quite as much diplomatic as military. The English wished to keep the Iroquois aggressively on their side and to enforce their view that these tribes were dependent on the English crown. On the other hand, the French were constantly seeking to detach the Iroquois from the English alliance and compel them to a separate peace. The western Indians, especially those of the lake region, also formed a factor in the problem. Their trade was essential to the prosperity of Quebec, and the French

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therefore desired not only to protect them against Iroquois attacks, but also to prevent their reaching an understanding with the Five Nations which might result in the diversion of the western trade to the English.

In this peculiar contest of diplomacy and Indian warfare, the chief figure on the French side was, of course, Frontenac. He found on his return to Canada that the French prestige, even among the western Indians, had been seriously impaired. Just before his arrival the danger from the Iroquois had been emphasized by the fearful massacre of Lachine, and the western trade was almost cut off. Frontenac first undertook to secure peace by negotiations with the Five Nations; and when that failed, to revive French prestige by striking a series of severe blows against the English and their Iroquois allies. Until the Iroquois could be forced to terms, the breach between them and the western Indians was, if possible, to be kept open.[*]

[* Lorin, Le Comte de Frontenac, pt. ii., chap. iv., pt. iii., chap. i.]

The chief representatives of the English interest in New York were the successive governors of the province, especially Fletcher, and an able Dutchman, Peter Schuyler. Fletcher was afterwards severely censured for misconduct in other matters;[*] but in the management of French and Indian affairs he showed considerable energy, and made, for a time at least, a favorable impression upon the Iroquois.

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col Hist., IV., 479-486.]

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It is difficult to say what he would have accomplished with larger resources within his own province and heartier co-operation from the neighboring colonies. The most important work on the frontier was done by a little group of Dutch colonists at Albany, of whom the most conspicuous was Peter Schuyler, who began his official career under Governor Dongan. He became the first mayor of Albany, and chairman of the board of commissioners of Indian affairs. Under the Leisler government he was out of favor, but in the later years of the war the value of his services was recognized by making him a councillor in the provincial government and its chief agent and adviser on the northern frontier.[*]

[* Schuyler, Colonial New York, I., 302 et seq.]

After the fiasco of 1690 the New York government undertook no serious military movement, though the desirability of an attack on Canada was strongly urged by the Iroquois and was recognized by Governor Fletcher. The resources of the province were considered inadequate to such an undertaking without the effective co-operation of the home government and the neighboring colonies, and such co-operation was not to be had. During the last six years of the war the burden fell almost wholly on the Iroquois.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 23, 32, 74.]

While the English remained comparatively inactive, the Five Nations were being gradually weakened by the aggressive measures of Frontenac. In

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1693 a force of several hundred French and Indians attacked and destroyed three Mohawk villages. In the same year an expedition to Mackinac strengthened the French influence among the western Indians and revived their trade with Montreal. These reverses and the inactivity of the English seriously weakened the Iroquois alliance. In 1694, conferences were held by some of the Iroquois with the French, but Frontenac refused to accept any peace which did not include his Indian allies, and insisted that the English should not be considered in the negotiations. The English influence was still strong enough to prevent a peace on these terms, and the war continued.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs., Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 118, IX., 550-555 577-584; cf. Parkman, Frontenac, chap. xiv.]

In 1696 the French prestige in the west was strengthened by two aggressive measures. One was the re-establishment of Fort Frontenac, which had been abandoned by Denonville, but which Frontenac considered of great importance for the defence of French interests in the west. The other was a formidable expedition against the Iroquois, composed of French regulars, Canadian militia, and several hundred Indians, with Frontenac himself in command. The Onondagas, who were the special object of attack, retired before this superior force, so that the French had to content themselves with the destruction of food and of the growing crops. Though this expedition, standing by itself, was indecisive,

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the long continuance of the war had so seriously impaired the fighting strength of the Five Nations that, according to an official report made in 1698 by order of the English governor, the number of their men had been reduced by one-half.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 337, IX., 640-659.]

The operations of the American war were, on the whole, indecisive, though the French could count some considerable strokes against the enemy during the closing months. In the west, French prestige was notably higher than at the beginning of hostilities. On the seaboard, Pemaquid had been taken and the fishing interests of New England had been seriously depressed by Iberville's operations in Newfoundland. Finally, the French had gained an important advantage in the Hudson Bay region through Iberville's capture of Fort Nelson in 1697.[*] These military operations were, nevertheless, too small to affect negotiations for peace, and the American provisions of the treaty of Ryswick were only minor incidents in the general European settlement between Louis XIV. and the allies.

[* Parkman, Frontenac, 391-394; Lorin, Le Comte de Frontenac, 464-467.]

In America, as in Europe, the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, brought no real settlement of the questions at issue. It was agreed that the two contending parties should retain the possessions which they held at the beginning of the war; but the boundary disputes then existing were not adjusted, although

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commissioners were to be appointed by the two governments.[*]

[* Treaty in Mémoires des Commissaires (Paris, 1755), II., 92-108.]

Before peace could be definitely established in America, both sides were obliged to negotiate with the Indians. On the New England border the war was closed by a treaty between the government of Massachusetts and the Abenaki Indians at Casco Bay in January, 1699.[*] The position of the Iroquois was quite different from that of the eastern Indians, for the English assumed that the Five Nations were dependent upon the English crown, and hence included in the peace between France and England. Acting on this assumption, the Earl of Bellomont, the new governor of New York and Massachusetts, demanded of Frontenac the surrender of all prisoners in his hands, including the Iroquois as well as the English, promising in return the release of French prisoners held by the Iroquois. Frontenac rejected the theory of English sovereignty over the Iroquois, and insisted upon separate negotiations with them. There was an angry correspondence between the two governors, and when Frontenac died, in 1698, the controversy was still unsettled. The English used all their efforts to prevent the Iroquois from conferring with the French; but they suffered a serious diplomatic defeat when, in 1701, under the auspices of the French

[* Drake, Border Wars of New England, chap. xiv.; Hutchinson, Hist. of Mass. Bay (ed. of 1795), II., 104.]

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governor Callières, a general peace was concluded between the French and their Indian allies on the one side and the Iroquois on the other.[*]

[* Parkman, Frontenac, 423-426, 438-452; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., passim., esp. 564-573, IX., 690-695, 715-725.]