itself into two classes, marked by strong shades of difference, though
separated by an uncertain line: in one were included the small and
feeble remnant of the first settlers, many of their immediate
descendants, the whole body of the clergy, and all whom a gloomy
temperament, or tenderness of conscience, or timidity of thought, kept
up to the strictness of their fathers; the other comprehended the new
emigrants, the gay and thoughtless natives, the favorers of Episcopacy,
and a various mixture of liberal and enlightened men with most of the
evil-doers and unprincipled adventurers in the country. A vivid and
rather a pleasant idea of New England manners, when this change had
become decided, is given in the journal of John Dunton, a cockney
bookseller, who visited Boston and other towns of Massachusetts with a
cargo of pious publications, suited to the Puritan market. Making due
allowance for the flippancy of the writer, which may have given a
livelier tone to his descriptions than truth precisely warrants, and
also for his character, which led him chiefly among the gayer
inhabitants, there still seems to have been many who loved the winecup
and the song, and all sorts of delightful naughtiness. But the
degeneracy of the times had made far less progress in the interior of
the country than in the seaports, and until the people lost the elective
privilege, they continued the government in the hands of those upright
old men who had so long possessed their confidence. Uncontrollable
events, alone, gave a temporary ascendency to persons of another stamp.
James II., during the four years of his despotic reign, revoked the
charters of the American colonies, arrogated the appointment of their
magistrates, and annulled all those legal and proscriptive rights which
had hitherto constituted them nearly independent states.

Among the foremost advocates of the royal usurpations was Dr. Bullivant.
Gifted with a smart and ready intellect, busy and bold, he acquired