Conceived in Liberty (64 page)

Edward Randolph finally returned to New England, after a delay of more than a year, to take up his post and to put the royal government of New Hampshire into effect. Randolph was instructed to administer an oath to uphold the Navigation Acts to each of the four colonial governors of New England.

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As Professor Hall expresses it: “Early in the decade of the 1670s... the great families were being replaced in high government office by men of more humble origins. The permanent Civil Service was being born.... These men owed their position not to family or wealth, but to the crown. To the crown they returned a heightened loyalty, and they would expect the same from others” (Michael Garibaldi Hall,
Edward Randolph and the American Colonies, 1676-1703
[Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960], p. 18).

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“Certainly a sizable number of colonists cooperated, or appeared to cooperate with Randolph.... But they were too multifarious to form a party.... Some wanted closer ties with England, some wanted religious toleration, some wanted aristocratic government, some... simply wanted political power” (Dunn,
Puritans and Yankees,
p. 218).

Edward Randolph arrived in America in December 1679. His first task was to set up the royal government in New Hampshire. At Portsmouth in mid-January, Randolph invested John Cutt, a leading Portsmouth merchant, with the office of President. Randolph’s problem in New Hampshire was to rule the four towns that were led by a small group of wealthy Puritan and Massachusetts merchants: the Vaughans, the Waldrons, the Cutts. As elsewhere, his policy was to divide and conquer. He achieved this aim by finding an ally in John Cutt. Next, Randolph appointed to the posts of councillor the other key merchant leaders; these included: Richard Waldron, Richard Martin, and William Vaughan. But five of the six councillors at first refused to serve, and it was the influence of John Cutt that finally persuaded them to end their civil disobedience and to assume their posts. Waldron became vice president of the colony.

The new General Court of New Hampshire, consisting of Council and elected Assembly, met in March and bravely passed a kind of declaration of rights, asserting that “no act, imposition, law, or ordinance be made or imposed upon us, but such as shall be made by the Assembly, and approved by the President and Council....” Brave words, but they ran straight against the intentions of the royal power.

Leaving New Hampshire, Randolph left behind him another pliable ally, Walter Barefoot, his deputy collector of customs. Barefoot was to enforce the Navigation Acts strictly and collect the corollary revenue. Another ally was the Englishman Richard Chamberlain, a friend of Mason’s who was appointed secretary of the New Hampshire Council.
However, Randolph lost his number-one ally, Cutt, who died in early 1681. Succeeding him in the post was the tough-minded merchant Richard Waldron. The new spirit was evident when Barefoot decreed that all ships entering and leaving Portsmouth must do so only under his authority. Waldron and his colleagues immediately displayed the old Massachusetts spirit of independence, promptly arresting Barefoot and trying him before the president and Council as the supreme court of the colony. Barefoot was charged with “having in a high and presumptuous manner set up His Majesty’s office of customs without leave from the president and Council... for disturbing and obstructing the subjects in passing from harbor to harbor and from town to town....” Barefoot was found guilty and fined the considerable sum of ten pounds.

New Hampshire was now in virtual revolt against the Crown’s rule. King Charles quickly disallowed the colony’s declaration of rights, and Robert Mason came to New Hampshire in late 1681 with the king’s order requiring Mason to be admitted as a member of the Council. Mason’s agents then began to demand his current and back quitrents from the settlers on pain of eviction, and to forbid the settlers to cut timber on “his lands.” Acting on numerous aggrieved petitions, the Council commanded Mason and his agents to cease and desist from these harassments. There followed a test of strength: Mason summoned the Council to appear before the king, the Council issued a warrant for Mason’s arrest as an usurper. Upon losing the test, Mason escaped arrest and fled back to England.

But New Hampshire had also to face the royal might of England. Mason having told his tale, and Richard Chamberlain, Francis Champernowne, and Walter Barefoot having complained, the king decided to remodel the administration of New Hampshire and bring the rebellious colony to heel. Instead of a president, New Hampshire was now to have a royally appointed governor with greatly expanded powers. The governor could convoke or dissolve the General Court, veto its laws, remove councillors, constitute courts, and appoint officers. Selected to be the first royal governor was the court favorite, Edward Cranfield, who was promised a handsome salary and one-fifth of all the quitrents received.

Cranfield arrived in New Hampshire in October 1682. Virtually his first act was to remove the independent-minded Waldron and Martin from office. He called an Assembly, which promulgated a new code of laws, this time omitting the declaration of rights.

By December Cranfield had discovered that Mason, in persuading him to take the office, had misrepresented the little colony by stating that it was far wealthier and more populated than it was. For a short while, Cranfield, disappointed at the poor pickings, turned against Mason and Randolph, and restored Waldron and Martin to office.

In a few more weeks, however, Cranfield remembered what he was
there for, and settled down to his job of plundering as best he could. As Cranfield was reported to have said, he had come to New Hampshire for money and money he would have. Cementing his alliance with Randolph, he put Randolph on the New Hampshire Council, and also appointed him attorney general of the colony. Toward the end of December, Cranfield seized and dragged into court George Jaffrey, a Puritan merchant of Portsmouth, for shipping goods deemed contraband under the navigation laws. At the trial, the jury, following the great English tradition of deciding on the justice of the
law
as well as the facts of the specific case, decided against the law and brought a verdict with court costs against the Crown. Cranfield reacted by removing Elias Stileman from his offices of councilman and commander of the fort. Stileman had disobeyed an order to fire on Jaffrey’s ship and was replaced as commander by the always pliable Capt. Walter Barefoot. The most high-handed reaction of Cranfield was to direct Randolph to prosecute the jury and all others involved in the criminal conspiracy. Cranfield would have liked to proceed against the main leader
of
the resistance, Rev. Joshua Moody, a Puritan minister who was also a merchant.

Cranfield now found the popularly elected Assembly refusing to pass his demands for higher taxes. The governor decided to institute a complete executive despotism and subdue the recalcitrant colonists. Cranfield dissolved the Assembly and made himself and the Council the supreme legislative and judicial power. He changed the juries from being elective to agencies appointed by the governor.

Virtually the entire populace of the colony, led by the merchants, freeholders, and Puritans, bitterly opposed the despotic regime that Cranfield had managed to impose in three short months in office. The people of New Hampshire were not the sort to take this treatment passively. Many people in Exeter resisted payment of the tax levy, but Edward Gove, a deputy from Hampton, decided on more active resistance: rebellion. Gove, aided by Nathaniel Ladd, of a prominent New Hampshire family, rode to and fro between Hampton and Exeter on January 27 trying to raise a rebellion and claiming that Cranfield’s commission was invalid. Gove raised the cry of “liberty and reformation,” but the other leaders of the colony decided that rebellion was imprudent, and the tiny band of eleven men was quickly arrested by the soldiery. There is reason to believe that the Gove rising was premature, and that the leaders of the popular opposition were themselves preparing to revolt three days later.

The Gove rebels were tried for high treason on February 2—ironically, the chief judge was Richard Waldron, a man whose views and sentiments were all with Gove. Waldron knew that Gove was right, and that he, Waldron, should have been standing in the dock instead of judging the man now there. But as often happens when men confront the embodiment
of their conscience, Waldron was especially severe. For daring to speak in his own defense, Gove was denounced by Waldron for “insolence” and then sentenced to be tortured and executed. Gove’s property was duly confiscated, and part of the spoils, as was the rule, was pocketed personally by Governor Cranfield. But Cranfield feared the rising revolutionary situation and was worried that Gove might escape, so he decided to follow the royal rule for rebels and ship Gove to England. Gove’s colleagues, though also convicted of treason, were released. In England Gove was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where there may have been an attempt to poison him.

Cranfield and his little clique now imposed a grinding despotism upon the colony. Cranfield speedily removed Waldron and Martin from the Council once again, and appointed Barefoot his deputy governor and Mason the chancellor. With the magistrates and juries all appointed by the governor, Mason began mass prosecution for failure to pay quitrents. Cranfield was supplied with a special incentive to enforce Mason’s claims: one-fifth of the quitrents extracted from the people was to go to Cranfield himself. Mason won thirty or forty suits before packed juries, and had the satisfaction of winning the first suit against none other than Waldron; the jury consisted of tenants of Robert Mason. But when executions were levied, no one would buy the confiscated lands or take possession of them. They remained in the hands of the property owners.

Cranfield now tried to meet this nonviolent resistance and extract Mason’s rents by force, but the people, emboldened by news of Gove’s life being spared, rose up and met force with force, led by Waldron, Vaughan, and Reverend Mr. Moody. Cranfield promptly retaliated by clamping the colony’s leaders—including Waldron, Moody, Vaughan, and Stileman—into jail. But this also failed, for the people managed to release many of them from prison and the rest were bailed out.

Cranfield, undaunted, pressed on in his despotic course. The ships of Massachusetts (thought to be anti-Cranfield) were excluded from New Hampshire, because of Massachusetts’ persistent violations of the navigation laws. He altered town boundaries, and forbade the collection of town and parish taxes until taxes to the province were paid.

Executive despots have traditionally had one Achilles’ heel: taxes. Cranfield found himself forced in January 1684 to recall the Assembly to try to raise more tax revenues. Cranfield used the old device of despots: trying to frighten the Assembly with dark forebodings of a foreign and an Indian threat. He had secret intelligence, said Cranfield, that New Hampshire was in danger of foreign invasion; he therefore demanded the doubling of tax rates for various increased expenses of government, including the repair of the Portsmouth fort. But the Assembly staunchly refused to be intimidated by war scares and refused to pass the revenue bill.

Governor Cranfield now dissolved the Assembly again, and proceeded to the ultimate length of levying taxes himself, without consent of the
Assembly. He also angered the colonists deeply by deciding to suppress completely the colony’s largest church, the Puritan church, and to impose Anglicanism on New Hampshire by force. Cranfield’s goal was to suppress the Puritan ministers and force them to administer the sacraments according to the Anglican rite. He also called for an Anglican test for holding any public office. Concretely, he proceeded with enthusiasm against one of the leading opponents of his despotic regime, Portsmouth’s Puritan minister, Rev. Joshua Moody. Cranfield, backed by Mason and Councillor John Hinckes, ordered Moody to administer to them the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper after the Anglican order. When Moody refused, he was arrested. Cranfield put considerable pressure on the judges and Moody was condemned and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. After his release, Moody was prohibited from preaching, which forced him to move to Boston.

But the tide now began to turn against the governor. The sober, moderate Nathaniel Weare, justice of the peace and leading citizen of Hampton, was sent secretly out of the colony. Financed by the leading planters and merchants, he sailed to London. Weare came armed with an extensive petition to the king against the tyranny of Cranfield. Even Edward Randolph, apprised of the Weare petition, turned against the extremes of Cranfield. Cranfield’s own response to the Weare petition, incidentally, was characteristic of the man: he would get the names of all the signers “and it would be the best hand he ever had, for it would be worth £100 a man.” For helping Weare with the petition, the prominent merchant and landowner William Vaughan was imprisoned for nine months by Cranfield. However, the cause of New England in general, and New Hampshire specifically, was now being argued by the liberal George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, and president of the Privy Council. Halifax argued frankly, according to the report of a French envoy, “that the same laws in force in England ought to be established in a country inhabited by Englishmen; that an absolute government was neither so happy nor so safe as one that is tempered by laws; and that he could not make his mind easy to live in a country where the King should have the power to take the money he had in his pocket, whenever His Majesty saw fit.”

The first sign of the Crown’s displeasure with Cranfield came in April 1684, when the Lords of Trade rebuked him for deciding the Mason claims himself, instead of sending them to England to be adjudicated, as per his instructions. But Cranfield’s internal troubles were even greater. The attempt to enforce payment of the new taxes led to general civil disobedience in the colony. All refused to pay taxes to the constables. And when the property of the resistors was finally seized, no one would buy. In December the resistance began to move into the stage of outright revolution. At Exeter, cudgels and boiling water were used to drive off the marshal, the hated Thomas Thurston. In Hampton, Thurston was disarmed
and beaten, and from there was escorted to the village of Salisbury with a rope around his neck. When the Magistrate Robie ordered seizure of some of the mob, he was assaulted instead. The governor ordered a troop of cavalry, commanded by Robert Mason, into the field to put down the rebellion. But so widespread was the revolutionary movement that at the appointed time and place, Mason found himself alone on his horse. During the height of the turmoil, in June 1685, Cranfield took the precaution of taking extended leave of absence in the West Indies, for his “health”; he left Barefoot to face the music.