ed upon the provisions of
the new Charter, he determined upon appointing a Governor for
Massachusetts, while meeting their wishes as far as possible in his
selection of the Governor; for, as Mr. Neal says, "Two days after he had
heard Dr. Mather against continuing the Governor and officers appointed
over Massachusetts by King James the Second, but restoring the old
officers, the King inquired of the Chief Justice and some other Lords of
the Council whether, without the breach of law, he might appoint a
Governor over New England? To which they answered that whatever might be
the merits of the cause, inasmuch as the Charter of New England stood
vacated by a judgment against them, it was in the King's power to put
them under that form of government he should think best for them. The
King replied, he believed then it would be for the advantage of the
people of that colony to be under a Governor appointed by himself;
nevertheless, because of what Dr. Mather had spoken to him, he would
consent that the agents of New England should nominate such a person as
would be agreeable to the inclinations of the people there; but,
notwithstanding this, he would have Charter privileges restored and
confirmed to them."[210]

It seems to me that King William was not actuated by any theoretical
notions of high prerogative, as attributed to him by Messrs. Bancroft
and Palfrey, in regard to Massachusetts, but was anxious to restore to
that colony every just privilege and power desired, with the exception
of the power of the Congregationalists of Massachusetts to prosecute and
persecute their fellow-religionists of other persuasions, and of
depriving them and other colonists of the right of appeal to the
protection of England.[211] This continued possession of usurped powers
by the Congregationalists of Massachusetts, of sole legislation and
government under the first Charter, and which they so mercilessly and
disloyally exercised for more than half a century, was manifestly the
real ground of their opposition to a new Charter, and especially to the
second and final draft of it. Their agent in England, Dr. Increase
Mather, who had inflamed and caused the citizens of Boston, and a
majority of the popular Assembly of the Legislature, to reject the
conditions insisted upon by Charles the Second, and contest in a Court
of law the continuance of the first Charter, with their pretensions
under it, said that he would rather die than consent to the pr