in a
merchant ship, for London, without giving notice of his intention to
anybody except two or three servants.[258]

The burden of his difficult and vexatious office fell upon the
lieutenant-governor, William Dummer. When he first met the Council in
his new capacity, a whimsical scene took place. Here, among the rest,
was the aged, matronly countenance of the worthy Samuel Sewall, deeply
impressed with the dignity and importance of his position as senior
member of the Board. At his best he never had the faintest sense of
humor or perception of the ludicrous, and being now perhaps touched with
dotage, he thought it incumbent upon him to address a few words of
exhortation and encouragement to the incoming chief magistrate. He rose
from his seat with long locks, limp and white, drooping from under his
black skullcap,--for he abhorred a wig as a sign of backsliding,--and in
a voice of quavering solemnity spoke thus:--

"If your Honour and this Honourable Board please to give me leave,
I would speak a Word or two upon this solemn Occasion. Altho the
unerring Providence of God has brought you to the Chair of
Government in a cloudy and tempestuous season, yet you have this
for your Encouragement, that the people you Have to do with are a
part of the Israel of God, and you may expect to have of the
Prudence and Patience of Moses communicated to you for your
Conduct. It is evident that our Almighty Saviour counselled the
first planters to remove hither and Settle here, and they dutifully
followed his Advice, and therefore He will never leave nor forsake
them nor Theirs; so that your Honour must needs be happy in
sincerely seeking their Interest and Welfare, which your Birth and
Education will incline you to do. _Difficilia quae pulchra_. I
promise myself that they who sit at this Board will yield their
Faithful Advice to your Honour according to the Duty of their
Place."

Having thus delivered himself to an audience not much more susceptible
of the ludicrous than he was, the old man went home well pleased, and
recorded in his diary that the lieutenant-governor and councillors rose
and remained standing while he was speaking, "and they expressed a
handsom Acceptance of what I had said; _Laus Deo_."[259]

Dummer was born in New England, and might, therefore, expect to find
more favor than had fallen to his predecessor; but he was the
representat