eighteen gentlemen voted for, the governor and lieutenantgovernor were to be chosen, and ten assistants. The votes of all the counties in the Colony - viz., Essex, Suffolk, Hampshire, Middlesex, Norfolk (Dover and Portsmouth having been returned separately from those of Norfolk), and Yorkshire were opened on the 11th of April. The following are the returns; viz. :

"The Names of eighteen Gentlemen who had most Votes for Magistrates for the year ensuing, as appears at opening the sd. Votes at Boston, April 11th, 1676, with the number of Votes for each:†

Of these gentlemen, Leverett and Symonds, the governor and deputy-governor of the preceding year, stood the highest (which was pretty much a matter of course); and they were respectively re-elected this year. Major Willard stood the third having forty-two votes less than Governor Leverett, the most popular man in the Colony; three less

Yorkshire comprised the towns in Maine over which the Bay Colony had extended her jurisdiction. These were York, Kittery (including the present towns of Berwick and Eliot), Wells, Cape Porpoise, and Saco (including the present town of Biddeford).

† Collections of the New-Hampshire Historical Society, vol. iii. pp. 99, 100. Communicated by Lemuel Shattuck, Esq.

This word was written in by the committee of one from each county who opened the returns, and certified at the beginning of the session to the names of the gentlemen voted for, together with the number of votes given to each as contained in the foregoing list.

than Deputy-Governor Symonds; and fifty-two more than the estimable Russell, who stood the fourth upon the list. Gookin's popularity at this time was in shadow, because of his defence of the Christian Indians. He was a worthy man, true to his honest conviction, and bore up with a brave spirit against the sharp persecutions of the day. The shadow soon passed away, as it ever does from brave and conscientious men, who scorn to pander to a depraved public sentiment; and he stood forth with new lustre. At the Court of Elections, Leverett was rechosen governor; Symonds, lieutenant-governor; and Messrs. Bradstreet, Denison, Russell, Danforth, Hathorne, Pynchon, Tyng, Stoughton, Clarke, and Joseph Dudley, were chosen assistants. Dudley (afterwards governor) stood the thirteenth on the list in the number of votes, and was elected by the court in consequence of the death of Major Willard.

19. No successor as commander of the Middlesex regiment was appointed until after Major Willard's death, when Gookin* succeeded to the vacancy. The record of his "choice and appointment" runs thus; viz. :

"Att a Generall Court of Election held at Boston the 39 of May, 1676, Capt. Daniel Gookin was by the whole Court chosen and appointed to be sarjant-major of the regiment of Middlesex."

In an ordinary time of peace, the chief office in the regiment would be filled at an early day: much more would this be the fact in a vacancy occurring at any point of time between August, 1675, and April, 1676,-embracing the whole of the darkest period of Philip's war.

20. Last of all, I would refer to the records of the General Court, which may be considered the highest authority on the point in question. Their entire proceedings, from August, 1675, to April, 1676, are in existence; containing all their transactions at the adjourned session in October, 1675, which was the first meeting after July; and at the fur

*Gookin, as well as Willard, was a "Kentish souldier," according to Johnson.

ther adjournment in November, 1675, with that of February, 1676, which was the last during Major Willard's lifetime. These records have been consulted more than once in the original manuscripts, as well as in the recently printed volumes, to ascertain whether any ground exists to justify Dr. Fiske's statement. The examination has resulted, in each instance, in establishing the fact, that they contain not a word of censure of Major Willard. A silence so emphatic is equivalent to a positive denial.

The governor and assistants had no authority to remove from office. The charter vested in the General Court the election of "officers" for ordering the affairs of the company, and the resulting power of removal for "misdemeanor or defect," and the choice of others in their place. No distinction is made between military and civil officers. The charter speaks only of "officers" needful for "the government and plantation;" and their duties were to be defined, their oaths prescribed, and punishment for violation or neg lect of duty imposed, by the General Court. And as the court had the right to repel by force of arms, by sea or land, all persons attempting the "destruction, invasion," &c., of the "plantation or inhabitants," it follows, of course, that military officers were embraced in a fair construction of the provisions of the charter.

In 1668, the General Court distinctly claim this power; and, referring to "the direction of our patent, relating to the stating of all military officers in this jurisdiction,' proceed to confirm former commissions; and add, that "for the time to come, where new are to be chosen, it is only in the power of the General Court (or, in case of emergency, for the Council of the Commonwealth) to nominate, choose, appoint, and impower all commission military officers, excepting the major-general, and admiral by sea, the choice of whom is otherwise provided for by law." A further provision is made for inferior officers.

The word "military" does not occur in any part of the charter.

This act confirmed the commission of Major Willard under the election by the train-bands of Middlesex in 1653, and the commissions of all other military officers. Under the same act, Gookin was chosen as his successor, as above mentioned.

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CHAPTER XII.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SIMON WILLARD.

(Continued.)

We now approach the closing scene of Major Willard's long and arduous career. We may safely assume, that the life of exposure to which he had been inured during the forty-two years of residence upon the frontier of New England induced a vigorous habit of body, which enabled him to brave the many hardships and difficulties incident to his position even in time of peace; and at an advanced age, throughout the deadliest period of the war, to sustain an amount of labor and exercise that we of this generation would consider somewhat remarkable. No rail-car bore the veteran to the post of danger. There was no smooth, hard road, over which he could travel in easy carriage, - the poetry of motion, according to Dr. Johnson, with relays of horses, to the points of attack, and be protected from heat and cold, from fatigue and peril, in his passage. There was only the rough path, along which the horseman forced his devious way, through tangled copse and stony places; fording or swimming the streams that would vainly endeavor to obstruct his course.

Major Willard was looking forward to a further term of service in civil life as an assistant and judge; and, in military life, to continued exertion in the field against an enemy still active and destructive. But, in this last year, an unusual load of care, with its train of anxieties, added to the hazards of an intense winter, to which he was so often exposed on the journey or on the march, in long-continued absences from his cherished home, must have rendered

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