James the Second, His Excellency Sir Edmund Andros took the government into his hands, which was annexed to Massachusetts and other colonies, and the word "Finis" was written after the entry, to indicate that Connecticut had come to an end as a separate State. The historian of New England says that then it was all "consolidated under one despotism."

I imagine the governor returning to Boston with a face beaming with satisfaction as he thought that he had successfully accomplished the dirty work that his mean master had set him to do; but if he felt satisfaction, it was not to remain with him long, for as I have told you, his getting into the dark was not the worst of his troubles. He went on in his high-handed proceedings, and the feelings of the people grew more and more intense against him as he did so. In the meantime, Englishmen at home were growing discontented with the king himself, and finally he thought it best to run away. On the eleventh of December, 1688, he stole out of his palace secretly, crossed the Thames in a small boat, threw the great seal of the kingdom into the

muddy river and hurried off. King James did this because his people aggravated beyond endurance, had called William, Prince of Orange, and his wife, Mary, daughter of James, to come and rule over them, and the Prince had actually arrived in November.

It was the fourth of April of the next year before the people of Boston had any news of what was going on at home. Then a ship came into their harbor bringing a young man who had a copy of the proclamation issued by the Prince of Orange. Andros heard of it, and did not wish the people to know it. He sent a messenger to bring the young man to his house. He refused to go, and was for his boldness marched off to prison. This excited the people, and Andros found it safer to get himself to the fort, where he thought he could escape to the British ship Rose that was lying in the harbor. Two weeks later, came election day, and State street (then called King street), was crowded with excited men. By coming together and talking over their troubles they became more excited, until at last they planted troops before the Fort, called

upon Andros to surrender, and forced him to give

up. He tried to escape in the clothes of a woman, but he was caught and marched back to prison.

Then he had time to meditate on the things he had done for his master. Two weeks more passed, and a vessel brought the glad news that William of Orange was actually king of England instead of James. Then the good people of Boston sat down to a fine dinner in the Town House, and did not rise from the table until the watchman had tolled the hour of nine, when all honest Bostonians were expected to be at their homes. Thus the tyrant Andros went from oppression into the dark, and from dark to prison, and the people of New England fluctuated from one degree of exasperation to another and then experienced a rebound as they forgot their pains in the festal gathering.

CHAPTER IX.

THE LOST EXILES OF TEXAS.

F we could have stood upon the shores of Mat

IF

agorda Bay, with the Indians on a certain day one hundred and ninety-nine years ago we might have been witness to a strange sight. Before us would have been spread out the waters of a broad and sheltered harbor opening towards the sea through a narrow passage which was obstructed by sand-bars and an island. One's eyes could not reach to the end of the bay, which is fifty miles long; nor could they see land beyond the sea-passage, for that opens into the broad Gulf of Mexico. Let us take our stand on the shore and see what we can see.

There appear to us, as if by magic, the forms of two French gentlemen accompanied by a small party of soldiers, who come from the mouth of the bay, and carefully thread their way along the

shore. It is a strange company of men. The leader is a native of Rouen, and he says that few of his companions are fit for anything but eating. He thought that his band comprised creatures of all sorts, like Noah's ark, but unlike the collection of the great patriarch, they seemed to be few of them worth saving.

As we look, the men begin to gather together the pieces of drift-wood that the peaceful waves throw up on to the shore. They are evidently planning to make a raft; but, as one of them casts his lazy eyes in the direction in which ours were at first thrown, he exclaims with evident joy, in his native French, " Voila les vaisseaux!" or words to that effect, for he has descried two ships entering the bay from the Gulf. The ships slowly keep their way towards the inland coast, and from one of them there lands a man evidently higher in auHis air is calm,

thority than any we have seen. dignified, forceful, persistent.

He announces to

those about him that they are at one of the mouths of the great Mississippi, or, as he well calls it "La rivière funeste," the fatal river. "Here shall we