tablishment of the former Government. The council summoned a
convention which, after hesitation and delay, authorized elections for a
House of Representatives and the resumption of all the old forms and
powers. On June 6, the assembly met, and to all appearances
Massachusetts was once more governing herself as if the charter had
never been annulled.

The other colonies followed the example of Massachusetts, and miniature
revolutions took place in Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, where
the Andros commissions offered few obstacles to the renewal of the old
forms. In a majority of cases the old officials were at hand, ready to
take up their former duties. Plymouth, having no charter, simply
returned to her old way of life, precarious and uncertain as it was; but
Rhode Island and Connecticut took the position that as their charters
had not been vacated by law, they were still valid and had not been
impaired by the brief intermission in the governments provided by them.
In this opinion the colonies were upheld by the law officers in England.
Before the middle of the summer, practically all traces of the Andros
regime had disappeared, except for the prisoners in confinement at
Boston and the bitterness which still rankled in the hearts of the
people of Massachusetts. There was no such intensity of feeling in the
other colonies, where the loss of the assembly was the main grievance,
though in Connecticut the resumption of authority by the old leaders
roused the animosity of a small but energetic faction which said that
the charter was dead and could not be revived, and demanded a closer
dependence on the Crown. Henceforth, that colony had to reckon with a
hostile group within its own borders, one that deemed the institutions
and laws of the colony oppressive and unjust, and that for a time
resisted the authority of what its leaders called a "pretended"
government. During the years that followed, these men made many efforts
to break down the independence of the corporate government, and to this
extent the rule of Andros left a permanent mark upon the colony.

CHAPTER XI

THE END OF AN ERA

But the future of the New England colonies was to be decided in England
and not in America. If the orthodox leaders in the colony thought that
the new King had levelling sympathies or would thrust aside the policy
already adopted by the English authorities for the defense of the
colonies and the maintenance of the acts of