ontested every move of
their opponents and sought to obtain as favorable terms as possible for
Massachusetts; while Oakes and Cooke, sent over by the colony as its
official agents and representing the uncompromising Puritan wing,
hindered rather than helped the cause by insisting that no concessions
should be made and that Massachusetts should receive a confirmation of
all her former privileges. Mather's success was noteworthy. He could not
prevent the appointment of a royal governor or the separation of New
Hampshire from Massachusetts, nor could he obtain the right of coinage
for the colony; but he did secure the permanent annexation of Maine and
the Plymouth colony, and a large measure of appointive power and
legislative control for the people. In some ways most significant of
all, he obtained from the Crown the noteworthy concession that the
council of the colony should be chosen by the general assembly and not
be appointed from England, as was the case with all the other royal
colonies. Even New Hampshire eventually had the same governor as
Massachusetts, thus preserving a union for all central and northern New
England, which was destined to last for forty-four years.

The charter of 1691 was a compromise between the old government which
had existed in Massachusetts since 1630 and that of a regular royal
colony, and as such it satisfied neither party. It was greeted in
Massachusetts with vehement disapproval by the old faction, who charged
Mather with flagrantly deserting his trust; and in England it was viewed
as a shameful concession to the whims of the Puritans. This yoking
together of parts of two systems, corporate and royal, was to give rise
in Massachusetts in the succeeding century to a struggle for control
that deeply affected the course of the colony's later history.

* * * * *

In all the New England colonies, the fall of Andros and the close of the
century marked the end of an era in which the dominant impulse was the
religious purpose that actuated the original colonists in coming to
America. The desire for a political isolation that would preserve the
established religious system intact was exceedingly strong in the
seventeenth century, but it ceased to be as strong in the century that
followed. The fathers gave way to the children; the settlements grew
rapidly in size, increased their output of staple products beyond what
they needed for themselves, and became vastly