Under no circumstance could the theocracy have
endured: it must have fallen by revolt from within if not by attack from
without. That Charles II. did in fact cause its overthrow gives him a
claim to our common gratitude, for he then struck a decisive blow for the
emancipation of Massachusetts; and thus his successor was enabled to open
before her that splendid career of democratic constitutional liberty which
was destined to become the basis of the jurisprudence of the American
Union.
CHAPTER VII.
THE WITCHCRAFT.
The history of the years between the dissolution of the Company of
Massachusetts Bay and the reorganization of the country by William III. in
1692 has little bearing upon the development of the people; for the
presidency of Dudley and the administration of Andros were followed by a
revolution that paralyzed all movement. During the latter portion of this
interval the colony was represented at London by three agents, of whom
Increase Mather was the most influential, who used every effort to obtain
the reestablishment of the old government; they met, however, with
insuperable obstacles. Quietly to resume was impossible; for the obstinacy
of the clergy, in refusing all compromise with Charles II., had caused the
patent to be cancelled; and thus a new grant had become necessary. Nor was
this all, for the attorney and solicitor general, with whom the two chief
justices concurred, [Footnote: _Parentator_, p.
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