Volume 1, Chapter 49, Edward Randolph v. Massachusetts, 1680-1684
After Randolph established the royal government in New Hampshire, he repaired to Boston, where he took up his duties as Collector of Customs at the end of January 1680.
At Boston, Randolph was treated by the bulk of the populace of Massachusetts as their determined enemy.
complained Randolph, I am received at Boston more like a spy than one of His Majesty's servants,
all persons taking liberty to abuse me in their discourses. His servant was beaten.
Efforts were made to prevent the hated official from finding lodgings, but now Massachusetts'
past persecutions came home to roost. Randolph found lodgings and allies among the Quakers.
The key to Randolph's appointed task of enforcing the Navigation Acts was the process of seizure and trial.
Any vessel under suspicion of violating the law could be seized by a royal officer,
and the owner could not touch the ship or the cargo until the case came to trial.
During this period, the owner was, in effect, treated as guilty before so proven.
Court action was initiated by filing a formal charge by the informer, the man who detected the alleged violation.
Any person could perform the job of informing. If the owner was found guilty, the vessel was ordered sold and the proceeds to be divided among the king, the colonial government and the informer.
In practice, however, violators were allowed to settle for much smaller payments.
In Massachusetts, Randolph himself was the sole officer and the only one empowered to search shipping.
In May 1680, Randolph seized his first vessel, the Expectation.
During the next three years, Randolph seized 36 ships charged with violating the navigation laws.
All but two of the ship owners were acquitted.
No case tried by a jury won a conviction. And as for the Massachusetts magistrates, they tried in every way to obstruct Randolph's path.
They either refused to recognize Randolph's commission from the Crown or interpreted it very narrowly.
They charged Randolph the cost of special sessions of the courts and payable in advance.
In a brilliant counter-stroke, the Massachusetts magistrates encouraged the merchants to bring
damaged suits against Randolph as soon as they won their almost inevitable acquittal
in the courts. All the deputies and employees hired by Randolph were systematically harassed
and often boldly imprisoned for trespassing private property. Randolph, moreover, was
was none too scrupulous in his choice of vessels to seize. Much of Randolph's personal income
was to come from the revenues collected, as well as from fees of 50 percent of the value
of confiscated goods for being his own informer. So Randolph had a direct personal interest
in maximizing the severity of enforcement of the Navigation Acts.
There are always people eager to crook the need to power, and here and there Randolph
Found His Allies. His main confederate was Governor Simon Bradstreet. Along with Bradstreet
came several of the magistrates, including Bradstreet's brother-in-law, Joseph Dudley.
But Bradstreet could not intimidate the popular juries. In one case, Bradstreet himself angrily
sent the jury out three times in a vain attempt to reverse its verdict of acquittal. At the
The head of the popular opposition, on the other hand, was the deputy governor, Thomas
Danforth. It was Danforth who incurred the brunt of Randolph's frustrated ire, yet the
opposition was unwilling to push its resistance to the point of directly opposing the incursions
of royal power. Thus, in the case of Captain Peter Lawrence, who forcibly resisted royal
The Court of Assistance arrested him summarily. In another case, the jury quickly acquitted
the shipmaster for breaking the Navigation Acts, but did fine him for obstructing Randolph
in the course of his duty. By the turn of 1681, the turmoil of the Popish plot and the
temporary ascendancy of Shaftesbury and the Liberals were over. Tory reaction was again
in Firm Control of the English Government. The Crown was once again ready to resume its
campaign against Massachusetts, and of course it was continually excited to do so by Randolph
Mason and others. And once again the King, in a message delivered by Robert Mason, ordered
Massachusetts to send agents to England. Everyone now knew that drastic modification of the
and Massachusetts Charter would shortly ensue. The smell of doom for Massachusetts was in
the air.
At the crossroads, Massachusetts now, in January 1681, began to crumble. Resistance ebbed. Perhaps
the Puritans and magistrates had lost much of their spirit of sturdy independence as
well as their zeal for persecution. Thomas Danforth argued at length the vital importance
of Massachusetts taking its stand right here and refusing to send the agents. He warned
of the end of the country's liberties, but the bulk of the leadership was caving in.
The Puritan Church Elders, a committee of six leading Puritan ministers headed by the
Reverend Increase Mather and such leading merchants as the magistrate Joseph Dudley
and William Stroughton. All argued for submission and for sending the agents. But Danforth perceived
that here would be the critical turn, that submission here would mean betrayal of the
entire cause. Almost single-handed and alone, Danforth charged the ministers with treason
and betrayal of their liberty. He was scoffed at for his supposed extremism. Stroughton
Randolph snared at him as the bellows of the Court of Deputies.
Massachusetts voted to send agents, and Randolph took the opportunity of traveling to England to wage his campaign against Massachusetts in person.
After arriving in England in spring, Randolph asked the King for a co-warrant to invalidate the Massachusetts Charter.
to Invalidate the Massachusetts Charter. He proposed that he be allowed to nominate a president
and council of the colony to be a transitional substitute, and then he suggested that the king
appoint a governor general for all New England. After considerable difficulties, Randolph did
secure a new and rather more extensive commission, explicitly authorizing him to enforce all the
all the navigation acts and to collect miscellaneous crown revenues.
As a result, when Randolph returned to New England in late 1681, he was greeted with
even more hatred than before.
One local versifier put Boston's sentiments as follow.
Welcome, sir, welcome from the eastern shore, with a commission stronger than before to
to play the horse leech, rob us of our fleeces, to rend our land and tear it all to pieces,
Boston make room, Randolph's returned, that Hector confirmed at home to be the sharp collector.
So Royal Charles is now about to prove our loyalty, allegiance and our love in giving
Giving License to a Publican to Pinch the Purse to Hurt the Man.
Now Massachusetts, having already tried to gain some favor from the King by repealing
the fanatical Puritan laws against keeping Christmas and punishing Quakers returning
from banishment with death, attempted a shrewd maneuver. It would pass a naval office law
and Acting the Navigation Acts of 1660 and 1663, thereby making them Massachusetts-owned.
This would enable Massachusetts itself to appoint the naval officer to enforce the acts
and to undercut and bypass Randolph completely.
The Navigation Act of 1673 was ignored because it was the only statute that gave Randolph
his legal foothold in America.
The General Court itself would appoint the naval officer. The hardcore opposition did
not want a point of power to rest in the hands of Randolph's ally, the opportunist Governor
Bradstreet. Furthermore, the informer was at last made fully liable for any damages
resulting from false seizure.
This naval office law was pushed through the General Court in early 1682 at the insistence
of the House of Deputies, which was under the firm control of the Popular Opposition
and over the stubborn resistance of the more timorous and opportunistic upper house, the
Council of Magistrates. The Magistrates were almost evenly split between the opportunist
and the Popular Opposition. Roughly, the general line-up of the Council of Magistrates was
as follows for the naval office law were Thomas Standforth, Daniel Gouken, Humphry Davy, John
Richards, Samuel Nowell, James Russell, Bartholomew Gedney, Samuel Appleton, and Peter Tilton.
Against the law, Governor Simon Bradstreet, who refused even to participate in swearing
in the naval officer, Daniel Dennison, William Stroughton, Joseph Dudley, Peter Bulkley, John
John Hull, John Pynchon, William Brown and Thomas Savage. There were two Salton stalls
on the Council, Richard Jr. in the Popular Opposition Party and Nathaniel in the Opportunist
Party. It did not take long for Edward Randolph to make a severe protest against the naval
office law. He reiterated the full force of his royal commission as well as the invalidity
of the Massachusetts Law.
The opposition party now took measures to proceed against Randolph, who expected imprisonment,
at the very least, knowing that as a rider to the naval office law there had been reenacted
the death penalty against subversion, a clear warning to the likes of Randolph.
But once again, tumourousness won out over bold action for independence and against royal
and Social Tyranny. Growing stronger, the opportunists were able to squash the proceedings
against Randolph and were also able to re-elect their leader Bradstreet over Thomas Danforth
the following May. Bradstreet had never administered the naval office law and now, emboldened by
his victory, he counter-attacked and maintained that the naval office law somehow did not
that affect Randolph's powers.
But now in June 1682, Randolph grew overconfident and tried to press his advantage by putting
the General Court of Massachusetts to the test.
He propounded a series of blunt questions that would force the court to state directly
its views as to which laws, English or American, ruled the colony.
But the House of Deputies simply refused to answer, and the Council thought Randolph had gone too far and reprimanded him for abusing the laws and government of Massachusetts.
The battle of Randolph versus Massachusetts was still stalemated.
In the meanwhile, Massachusetts two agents, the opportunist Joseph Dudley and the oppositionist Captain John Richards, had arrived in England and Danforth's gloomy prophecy was beginning to come true.
In England, Tory reaction had set in with a vengeance. Charles II ruled without Parliament and the religious dissenters were vigorously persecuted.
The Lords of Trade now wasted little time. At the end of 1682, the fatal question was put to Massachusetts.
Would Massachusetts empower its agents to make revisions of the Charter, or failing that, would the Charter be dissolved altogether?
Massachusetts now tried desperately to placate the Crown.
It repealed the naval office law in early 1683 and conceded Randolph's explicit authority
to search and seize vessels.
Massachusetts nobly would not yield on the crucial issue, even if it had to die it would
not commit suicide.
It would not allow its agents to revise its precious charter.
As the oppositionist magistrate Samuel Nowell explained to John Richards, if we do give
you the power required and you do make use of the power to answer demands, we do then
pull down the house ourselves, which is worse than to be passive only.
Once again Randolph rushed back to England to administer the coup de grâce to the independents
of Massachusetts.
The Lords of Trade decided in June to recommend a Quo Warento against the Massachusetts Charter.
The writ would be drawn up by Randolph and the Attorney General.
The writ would mean that Massachusetts would be forced to appear in court to defend its
behavior, and the verdict of such a trial would, almost certainly, go against the colony.
On Randolph's suggestion, the King offered Massachusetts one last chance.
If it would now submit to revision, the Quo Warento would not be executed, and the king
would regulate the charter for everyone's benefit. Randolph hurried back to Massachusetts
to present the royal offer.
What should Massachusetts do? Once again a great debate broke out between the opportunist
and the oppositionist. The opportunist took the age-old line of asperious realism to scoff
Profit Devotion to Principle.
Thus, Peter Bulkley expressed his puzzlement at such consistency in purist extremism.
By such ape-like over-fondness we are hugging our privileges and franchises to death
and prefer the dissolution of our body politic rather than to suffer amputation in any of its limbs?
To Bulkley the opposition appeared ignorant and simplistic.
Many of these men, being very ignorant in such affairs, do not well understand the matter, nor have a clear prospect of the effect, an issue, of not resigning ourselves to the king, and so are rather to be pitied than marked out.
But as Professor Hall aptly points out, in truth these ignorant fellows, the free men and their deputies, understood well enough.
They could hardly have failed to foresee the consequences of submission, especially since Cranfield was playing the royal leech in New Hampshire.
And not only were Cranfield and Mason plundering and persecuting Puritan ministers in New Hampshire, but already Captain William Phipps, Master of the Rose, on which Randolph had returned to Boston, was giving orders to all the merchant ships in the harbor.
The consequences of English rule were foreseeable enough.
The opposition argued against voting for the colony's own suicide.
True Englishmen, who are under a limited monarchy, should never consent to be in misery and slavery.
By December, Massachusetts had made its fateful decision.
The magistrates voted for submission by a small majority.
But virtually the entire House of Deputies voted repeatedly against submission.
and now in a turnabout they were backed by a substantial majority of Puritan clergymen.
Even Increase Mathur, who had been denounced for preaching submission the year before,
now joined the independence cause and became one of the prime leaders of the opposition party.
Randolph again sailed for England with the news and now the Crown executed a piece of legal trickery
To avoid giving Massachusetts even the right to appear in court in its own defense, by
changing the writ, the Crown got a writ of scary faciet et alias, which it could use
to speed a judgment in the Court of Chancery without giving Massachusetts any time to prepare
a defense. By changing the writ, the Crown was able to declare the Massachusetts Charter
The Massachusetts Charter annulled, and did so on October 23, 1684. The boom had finally been lowered on Massachusetts. The crown had at last dissolved the Bay Colony's charter.
Edward Randolph's war against Massachusetts now entered an entirely new phase. His first objective, to smash the independent government of Massachusetts, had been achieved.
But now there remained his next and final objective, to take control of Massachusetts, and indeed of all New England, and to rule the land for the profit of himself in the crown.
Energetic as always, Randolph lost no time in putting the next phase of his grand design into effect.
He found a perfect ally in the opportunist leader Joseph Dudley, who had gone to England to represent the interest of Massachusetts and had stayed to represent his own.
In fact, Randolph and Dudley had worked out a plan for Massachusetts and New England as early as the summer of 1683.
The plan proposed a governor general and a council for all New England and all were to be appointed by the king.
The council was to be selected, however, from the elected magistrates of the various New England colonies.
There was to be no New England assembly.
The Massachusetts government would continue to be elected by the freemen,
But the franchise was to be narrowed to those owning over 400 pounds in assets.
The Governor General would have the power to veto the seating of any elected official.
The Governor General would also have the ultimate appellate judicial power.
The militia would be ruled by royal officers.
All landowners would pay a yearly quid rent to the King.
This Dudley-Randolph plan, in effect, provided for an absolute royal despotism, ruling along with hand-picked colonial satellites over all of New England, but with a thin and hollow façade of democracy and home rule.
Rule.
Such leading merchants as Richard Wharton and William Stroughton now lined up with Dudley,
ready and eager to enjoy the privileges won by political favor.
Richard Wharton was typical of this group.
Formerly opposed to Randolph's enforcement of the navigation laws, Wharton now saw where
the power lay and determined to gain himself some of its perquisites.
Massachusetts, however, was increasingly balking at the promised new dispensation.
Although Bradstreet was re-elected in the May 1684 elections, it was only by hair-breadth
over Danforth, and Dudley, the main leader of the opportunist, lost his post as assistant.
Stroughton resigned his place in sympathy.
Nonetheless, Randolph and his cohorts spent the summer and early fall happily working
to clean out their plans for the takeover of New England.