preceding day, in the Town House, which stood at the head of State
Street, where the old State House now stands, events culminated, in
comparison with which the causes which led to the war of the Revolution
sink into utter insignificance. On the twenty-third of October, 1684, in
the High Court of Chancery of England, judgment was entered on the writ
of _scire facias_, by which the charter of Massachusetts Bay was
vacated; and as a consequence, the title to the soil, with all
improvements, reverted to the Crown, to the ruin of those who had
wrested it from the wilderness, and guarded it from the savage foe. The
old government, so endeared to the people, and defended against kingly
assault with the truest courage, was swept away by arbitrary power, and
in its place a new one established, under the presidency of Joseph
Dudley, and he a recreant son of the colony. It was the inauguration of
this government which had taken place on the day before Captain Bowden
and Dr. Clarke encountered John Wiswell, Jr., on their ride to
Cambridge. There ceremonies of the inauguration were not without
circumstances of pomp, and are set forth in the Council records at the
State House, from which I transcribe the following incidents: When the
new government, the president, and Council were assembled, the
exemplification of the judgment against the charter of the late governor
and company of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, publicly (in the
court where were present divers of the eminent ministers, gentlemen, and
inhabitants of the town and country) was read with an audible voice. The
commission was read and the oaths administered, and the new president
made his speech, after which, proclamation was openly read in court, and
commanded to be published by beat of drum and trumpet, which was
accordingly done.

The people in the Forum heard these drum and trumpets--young Wiswell,
doubtless, with the rest--and knew what they signified: the confiscation