New Charter for Massachusetts
Meanwhile Phipps, without charts or pilots, had crawled cautiously around Acadie and up the St. Lawrence for nine weeks, giving a swift Indian runner an opportunity to go from Pemaquid to Canada with the news of Phipps' departure, in time to allow Frontenac to reach Quebec before the arrival of the hostile fleet. The fortifications of the ancient town were strengthened; and when Phipps arrived before it, and sent a summons for its surrender, his message was treated with derision. It was then the middle of October. Hearing of the failure of the land expedition, Phipps weighed anchor and crawled cautiously back to New England before the winter storms set in. The French and Indians in Canada and Acadie were greatly elated, and the repulse was considered so important by Louis that he ordered a commemorative medal to be struck, with the legend: FRANCE VICTORIOUS IN THE NEW WORLD. These military operations exhausted the treasury of Massachusetts, and the government emitted bills of credit to the amount of about one hundred and thirty-four thousand dollars. This was the first paper-money ever issued on the American continent.
Soon after his return from the St. Lawrence, Sir William Phipps went to England to solicit aid for the colonies in their further warfare with the French and Indians, and to assist in efforts there to procure a restoration of the charter of Massachusetts which King James had annulled. Aid was refused; and instead of restoring the old charter, William gave a new one, by which Massachusetts, Plymouth, Maine and Nova Scotia were united under the name of "Massachusetts Bay Colony," and was made a royal province, with Phipps as governor. The baronet was a man of dull intellect, rudely educated, utterly lacking in qualities of statesmanship, headstrong, egotistical, superstitious, patriotic, and every way unfitted as a leader in civil and military affairs. He had gained distinction in his native colony only by his wealth and title, both of which were acquired by his successful raising of treasure from a Spanish ship with a diving-bell. He returned to Massachusetts in 1692, bringing the new charter with him.
The people of Massachusetts were not only dissatisfied with the new charter, but offended by it, for it greatly abridged their liberties. Wise and enlightened statesmen and churchmen in England advised William and his Parliament not to make the liberties of the colonists less. Tillotson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, charged the king "not to take away from the people of New England any of the privileges which Charles the First had granted them." Others did likewise; but the government refused to listen to wise advice. The king reserved the right, in the new charter, to appoint the governor, his deputy and the secretary of the colony, and of repealing all the laws within three years after their passage. This robbery of their liberties alienated the affections of the people from the mother country. It was one of the series of blunders made by the crown and ministers which fostered discontent in the colonies and tended to the final dismemberment of the empire in 1776.
Yet in some respects the new charter was an improvement upon the old. While the rights of citizens were abridged in some things, they were enlarged in others. Toleration was granted to every form of the Christian religion excepting, unfortunately, the Roman Catholic; and the right of suffrage--to vote--was no longer restricted to members of Congregational churches, but was made almost universal. Bigotry and intolerance were, so far, disarmed; and they never afterward held controlling sway in the policy of the State.
Here let us pause a moment in our narrative of political transactions and of the horrid war then raging, to consider a strange social feature in the history of Massachusetts, known as SALEM WITCHCRAFT.