The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1915-07-02

NNAS 0AON 6bS4d &yAldI4SG
II king. Her magistrates had waited
more than a year after first hearing
of the restoration before they public
ly and in proper form proclaimed his
authority, wishing to make sure that
the unwelcorne news was true and
the king actually accepted in Eng
land. The ship which brought the
news, in August, 1860, had brought
also two officers of Cromwelrs army,
Edward Whalley and William COTE,
who had signed the late King Charles
death warrant, and were now fugi-
tives from England; for the Parlia-
ment had excluded from the act of
indemnity and pardon, which had ac-|
companied the new Kings return, all
"regicides," all who had been directly
concerned in the. death of Charles T.
Many Of those who had not fed were
already under arrest, Sir Harry VaneI
among the rest, presently to be sent
to the scaffold; but the economists in
New England befriended these men
who had fed to them, and Col. John
Dixwell also, who soon followed them,
and kept them safe against all
searches of the kings officers until
they died.
Massachusetts, sent agents of her
own into England to make her peace
with the king, but they returned with
letter from his majesty which COM
manded an immediate recognition of
his authority, the administration of
justice in his name, the liberation of
the Church of England, and a repeal
of the laws by which the right to vote
was restricted to members of their
Puritan churches. 1t was the sharp
tenor Of this letter that made them
anxious how they should fare at the
hands of the royal commissioners who
came in 1864.
Fortunately for Massachusetts, the
settlement of her government was not
the first or chief business of the COM
missioners. They came with a feet
of three ships of war and transport
carrying $50 soldiers, to capture New
Amsterdam and make New Neither
land once for all an English province.
The thing proved easy enough. The
doughty Stuyvesant was taken en-
tirely by surprise, had no force with
which to withstand Charles ships,
found the peaceable burghers about
him loath to fight, and yielded with
out a blow struck, though he would
rather have lain in his grave, he said,
| bitterly, than make such a surrender.
There was no choice with but $50 men
trained to arms and but twenty guns
upon the fort against the kings fri
| gates and an army.
The settlement of the forms of gov
eminent under which the English
should rule was almost as easily eff
fected; for Col. Nilholls, the English
commander, was not less statesman
than a soldier, knew how to be wisely
generous and make liberal provision
for privileges and securities Of right
and property which should belong to
the Dutch settlers as freely as to the
i English, and within a year of his
coming he'd transformed New Meth
erland into New York, under laws
which promised liberation and good
government, and which all sensible
men accepted with satisfaction.
The kings commissioners did not
fare very well when they turned from
4 the taking of New Netherland to the
I examination and settlement of affairs
in Massachusetts,. In the other col
onies which they had been directed to
set in order they had little difficulty.
Connecticut and Rhode, island were
just now in favor at court, and gave
the commissioners little to do except
settle the boundaries between them.
Rhode island had obtained a new
charter from the king in July, 1868.
}, scarcely year after Mr.. Winthrop
had got his for Connecticut; and,
though she had had some difficulty
in saving an important strip of terri
tory which Connecticut's charter had
been made to include, that matter was
in the way to be adjusted before the
commissioners came. In Plymouth
they found the magistrates ready t.
make most of the concessions his
majesty had instructed them to de.
mand. But in Massachusetts they
, were utterly defeated of their pur,
pose.
The commissioners more than once
put themselves in the wrong by {
loss of temper or an unwarranted as
sumption of authority; and the whole
matter had at last to be referred
back, unsettled, to the king. A letter
2 thereupon came out of England com
4 handing Massachusetts to SEM
$ agents over to deal with the author
4 tiles there; but they found way tt
avoid obedience to the summons, anC
once again, as when their charter hat
been attacked thirty years before, tn,
n attention of statesmen at home wa
e called off from their business to mat
tiers of more pressing consequence
e Clarendon, who was the master spiri
e of the new policy Of the government
e toward the colonies, too stout for pre-
: negative to suit the Parliament, to-
stiff for right to suit the king, los
! L. II L. L.,