| | 1 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | My Kinsman, Major Molineux  | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | AFTER the kings of Great Britain had assumed the right of
appointing
the colonial governors, the measures of the latter seldom met with
the
ready and generous approbation which had been paid to those of
their
predecessors, under the original charters. The people looked with
most
jealous scrutiny to the exercise of power which did not emanate
from
themselves, and they usually rewarded their rulers with slender
gratitude for the compliances by which, in softening their
instructions
from
beyond the sea, they had incurred the reprehension of those who
gave
them. The annals of Massachusetts Bay will inform us, that of six
governors in the space of about forty years from the surrender of
the
old
charter, under James II., two were imprisoned by a popular
insurrection; a third, as Hutchinson inclines to believe, was
driven from
the
province by the whizzing of a musket-ball; a fourth, in the opinion
of
the same historian, was hastened to his grave by continual
bickerings
with the House of Representatives; and the remaining two, as well
as
their successors, till the Revolution, were favored with few and
brief intervals of peaceful sway. The inferior members of the court
party,
in
times of high political excitement, led scarcely a more desirable
life.
These remarks may serve as a preface to the following adventures,
which chanced upon a summer night, not far from a hundred years
ago.
The reader, in order to avoid a long and dry detail of colonial
affairs, is
requested to dispense with an account of the train of circumstances
that
had caused much temporary inflammation of the popular mind. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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