numbers, moreover, must have been large, for Boston had grown to be a town of 5000 inhabitants, the population of Massachusetts was approaching 30,000, and, according to Hutchinson, scarcely one grown man in five was a church-member qualified to vote or hold office.  Such a fact speaks volumes as to the change which was coming over the Puritan world.  No wonder that the clergy had begun to preach about the weeds and tares that were overrunning Christ’s pleasant garden.  No wonder that the spirit of revolt against the disfranchising policy of the theocracy was ripe. [Sidenote:  Joseph Dudley]

It was in 1679, when this weakness of the body politic had been duly studied and reported by Randolph, and when all New England was groaning under the bereavements and burdens entailed by Philip’s war, that the Stuart government began its final series of assaults upon Massachusetts.  The claims of the eastern proprietors, the heirs of Mason and Gorges, furnished the occasion.  Since 1643 the four Piscataqua towns—­Hampton, Exeter, Dover, and Portsmouth—­had remained under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts.  After the Restoration the Mason claim had been revived, and in 1677 was referred to the chief-justices North and Rainsford.  Their decision was that Mason’s claim had always been worthless as based on a grant in which the old Plymouth Company had exceeded its powers.  They also decided that Massachusetts had no valid claim since the charter assigned her a boundary just north of the Merrimack.  This decision left the four towns subject to none but the king, who forthwith in 1679 proceeded to erect them into the royal province of New Hampshire, with president and council appointed by the crown, and an assembly chosen by the people, but endowed with little authority,—­a tricksome counterfeit of popular government.  Within three years an arrogant and thieving ruler, Edward Cranfield, had goaded New Hampshire to acts of insurrection. [Sidenote:  Royal province of New Hampshire]

To the decisions of the chief-justices Massachusetts must needs submit.  The Gorges claim led to more serious results.  Under Cromwell’s rule in 1652—­the same year in which she began coining money—­Massachusetts had extended her sway over Maine.  In 1665 Colonel Nichols and his commissioners, acting upon the express instructions of Charles II., took it away from her.  In 1668, after the commissioners had gone home, Massachusetts coolly took possession again.  In 1677 the chief-justices decided that the claim of the Gorges family, being based on a grant from James I., was valid.  Then the young Ferdinando Gorges, grandson of the first proprietor, offered to sell the province to the king, who had now taken it into his head that he would like to bestow it upon the Duke of Monmouth, his favourite son by Lucy Walters.  Before Charles had responded, Governor Leverett had struck a bargain with Gorges, who ceded to Massachusetts all his rights over Maine for L1250 in hard cash.