The Story of the Salem Witch Trials by Bryan F. Le Beau

Author:Bryan F. Le Beau [Beau, Bryan F. Le]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, North America, United States, Colonial Period (1600-1775), State & Local, New England (CT; MA; ME; NH; RI; VT), Modern, 17th Century, Women
ISBN: 9781315509037
Google: wQo3DAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-05-23T16:15:47+00:00

C H A P T E R 7

“God Will Give You Blood To Drink”

Soon after George Burroughs’s hearing ended, the frigate Nonesuch entered the port of Boston from England, thereby ending a period of anticipation and anxiety as great as that which ended with the finding of the “black minister.” On board were Increase Mather, who was returning to Massachusetts with the new colonial charter he had been sent to secure, and Sir William Phips, his handpicked first Royal Governor.

Increase Mather, best known today perhaps for being the father of Cotton, but then president of Harvard and pastor of Boston’s Second Church, had been away for four years. He had been sent to England to resecure the old charter, but when that was denied by the new King and Queen, William and Mary, he made the best that he could of creating a new one. It contained some compromises, with which many Massachusetts Puritans would not be pleased, but it had much to commend it as well. “Take it with all its faults,” Mather explained, “and it is not so bad but when I left New England the inhabitants & would gladly have parted with many a thousand pounds to have obtained one so good.” Andros would not return, Mather pointed out, and the new charter did not meddle with local government, as some had feared it would if precedents set by the Andros Administration were honored. Taxes would still be levied by the General Court, wherein, again in contrast to what had happened during the Dominion Period, the people would be duly represented. And all of the general privileges of English citizenship that Andros had called into question were confirmed.1

As the arrival of Sir William Phips indicated, the people of Massachusetts would no longer elect their governor; he would be appointed by the Crown. Moreover, the electorate would no longer be limited to those in covenant with the Church. Nearly all adult male Christians (save Roman Catholics) who owned property would be enfranchised. It is true that it had long been the case that those living outside of the covenant in Massachusetts greatly outnumbered those living within, but the Puritan leadership did not feel obligated by that to make any changes. After all, to be in the majority was not necessarily to be among the godly, and it was the godly who were to rule their “City on a Hill,” their “Bible Commonwealth.”2

Certainly a major point of saving grace in Mather’s return with a new colonial charter was his companion Sir William Phips. If the people of Massachusetts were to have to live with no longer being able to select their own governor, they would take solace in having picked for them a man in whom they had as much faith as any. Phips was no stranger to Massachusetts. In fact, he was one of them. He had been born and raised in New England. He was a man of common ancestry, rather than of aristocracy, but he had worked his way to the top without alienating those he passed along the way.

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