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RANDOLPH'S LYING REPORTS

Edward Randolph soon returned to Boston, and not long after sailed for England. In his report to the king, he stated that "he had found the whole country complaining of the usurpation of the magistrates of Boston; earnestly hoping and expecting that his majesty would not permit them any longer to be oppressed, but would give them relief according to the promise of the commissioners of 1665."

This report, however much it might favor Randolph's design to incense the mind of the king against Massachusetts, in order to induce him to sever from that government the four towns whose territory Mason claimed, is sadly deficient in one very important element, namely, truthfulness, as is abundantly shown by the results of the town meetings already mentioned. Not less at variance with facts, is his report to the Lords of Trade and Plantations. Yet these reports appear to have produced the effect intended.

THE FOUR TOWNS SEVERED

After Randolph's departure, the Massachusetts government called a "special council," and asked whether it were best to send agents to England, or trust to letters only. The council advised to send trusty agents; and two prominent men were at once dispatched. Arrived in England, they disclaimed, before the lords chief justices of the king's bench and common pleas, all title to the lands claimed by Mason, beyond their limit of three miles north of the Merrimac. "The judges reported to the king, that they could give no opinion as to the right of soil, in the provinces of New Hampshire and Maine, not having the proper parties before them" since the apparent proprietors, the people in possession, had not been summoned to defend their titles. "As to Mason's right of government within the soil he claimed, their lordships, and indeed his own counsel, agreed he had none; the great council of Plymouth, under whom he claimed, having no power to transfer government to any. It was determined that the four towns of Portsmouth, Dover, Exeter and Hampton were out of the bounds of Massachusetts," This report was accepted and confirmed by the king in council, (Farmer's Belknap, 87.) in 1677.

END OF CHAPTER 4

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