The Empire Reformed. Owen Stanwood
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justified his rebellion in much the same terms. Indeed, in another letter Coney claimed to hear one of the rebels proclaim that “The Right of the Crown was in the Duke of Monmouth; and that hee was noe Papist; that the Protestant Religion now profest in England was Popery; and that the Pope was the Whore of Babilon and drunk with the bloud of the Saints.” At times, Coney even suggested that his enemies had secret knowledge of the risings at home, especially the minister Sampson Bond, the island’s most prominent divine and a man with longtime links to the dissenting interest in England.42
Beyond their specific links to Monmouth, Coney and his allies noted the Whig rhetoric the colonists used to justify their conduct. Indeed, they seemed to be intent, as the visitor from New England William Phips observed, “to sett up for a free Comon wealth & to follow piracy.” The people were devoid of any natural loyalty to their sovereign, but served only their own interest, which meant they would freely give up the island to the highest bidder. They justified their actions, naturally, by the disloyal rhetoric in English opposition literature. Captain George St. Lo, a visiting naval officer (see below) who sided with Coney against the Bermudians, noted that one opponent of the governor showed him “a Booke entituled the Liberty of the Subjects of England, by which he would make it appear, that they had the power to send the Governor home prisoner, but not the Governor them.” St. Lo eventually came to the conclusion that they were “a mutinous turbulent, hypocriticall people, wholly averse to Kingly Government.”43
The governor’s response to the plot against him surpassed even Cranfield’s actions in sheer foolishness. Since he had virtually no allies on the island, and no support from the crown, Coney deputized the captains and crews of passing ships to serve as councilors and provide assistance against the rebellion. His foremost ally was Bartholomew Sharpe, who sailed into St. George Harbor to purchase provisions for a return voyage to the Leeward Islands. A zealous defender of the king’s prerogative, Sharpe was only too happy to devote his ship and crew to the cause of defending the new royal colony against the rebels. Sharpe was less than an ideal lawman, however, since he was also one of the most notorious pirates in the Caribbean. In fact, he came to Bermuda after a lengthy romp around the West Indies, in which he had threatened the provost marshal of Jamaica, plundered a New England merchant ship, and sacked a Spanish settlement at Campeche, capturing thirty Indian slaves he intended to sell at Bermuda. Despite his Toryism, in other words, Sharpe was an unlikely agent of empire.44
Over the next few months the colony verged on civil war. On Coney’s orders, Sharpe imprisoned Richard Stafford, an elderly leader of the local opposition. Stafford quickly played the role of Joshua Moodey in New Hampshire, becoming the symbol of Coney’s oppression, locked in irons in the hold of Sharpe’s ship and not allowed to venture outside. Meanwhile, Sharpe’s men—many of them escaped servants from the West Indies—ranged around the island intimidating the governor’s opponents. One petition to Coney gave a sense of how the people viewed Sharpe, begging “That there bee no more rude men sent arm’d into the Country swearing & threatening to kill the Kings Subjects putting them in fear & takeing w[ha]t they please wch by the law is no less than robbery under the pretence of Authority.” In response, many Bermudians turned their homes into garrisons, hunkering down in anticipation of an impending strike from the tyrannical governor, his pirate sidekick, or even their possible Spanish allies. In an incendiary letter to local justices of the peace, William Peniston virtually called for armed resistance against Coney and Sharpe, protesting that the people’s “lives & estates” had been “vilely prostituted to the rage & fury of pirate Roags” who ran roughshod over the country. He urged the justices to act unilaterally against Sharpe, whom he defined as an enemy of the king, and noted how the pirate had imprisoned Richard Stafford “wth Irons on both leggs.”45
Undoubtedly Sharpe’s actions did more than anything else to dampen enthusiasm for royal government in Bermuda. He combined a thirst for power and authority with an almost fanatical opposition to dissent. In a brief letter to the Lords of Trade—his sole statement of his role in Bermuda’s political crisis—Sharpe wrote that “the Islands here are all in Rebellion agt his Majtie, and will nowaies believe that there is any other King than Monmouth Living.” All their complaints about Coney’s tyranny were mere pretenses; they really hated him because he represented the king, “for they are so contentious that they will alwaies be kettling against Monarchy.” For Sharpe, zeal for monarchy and distrust of dissenters went together; one witness said Sharpe “Swore Severall times that he … would bee … a plague to the New England men and the Burmudians.” And a plague he was: aside from imprisoning Stafford and confiscating arms from unruly subjects, he also hounded merchants, confiscating the sails of one ship that refused to lower them in recognition of the king’s standard, which Sharpe confidently displayed on his own ship. Such actions did allow Coney a measure of control, but at the cost of his legitimacy. As word circulated around the country that Sharpe was suspected of piracy, the governor’s reputation among his people dipped even lower. One opponent called him “the pitifullest Domineeringst rascall in the world”—a description that most of the island seemed to endorse.46
The end of Sharpe’s term as royal enforcer came in the spring of 1686. The royal frigate Dartmouth arrived in Bermuda, commanded by an actual naval officer, George St. Lo, who carried a warrant for Sharpe’s arrest. St. Lo shared Sharpe’s politics but not his tactics. The officer surveyed the situation and spoke to partisans on both sides before concluding that Coney was right and the Bermudians had no legitimate grievances against the governor. When he departed during the summer of 1686 he carried off both Sharpe—to face trial for piracy in Nevis—and five leading opponents of the regime, sent like Edward Gove to face trial and punishment in England.
At this point a measure of calm returned to Bermuda, but for Coney the damage was done. His efforts to royalize Bermuda had been even less successful than those of Cranfield. Moreover, officials in Whitehall proved reluctant to take a hard line against the rebels. Almost as soon as they arrived in London, the five opponents of Coney petitioned for their freedom, and within six months they returned to Bermuda and presented a petition to receive reimbursement for their forced confinement and transportation. The new governor, Sir Robert Robinson, viewed local politics in a much less paranoid manner than his predecessor, and as a result his rule was remarkably free of drama. Indeed, as former Bermudian William Milborne joined his fellow Bostonians in overthrowing their governor during the revolutionary turmoil of 1689, Robinson and his people sat tight, confused but not particularly alarmed by the tumultuous politics in England.47
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The ordeals of royal administrators in New Hampshire and Bermuda demonstrate some important truths about the Restoration empire. In both places, reformers had grand ambitions and expectations for success, not least because so many local inhabitants expressed theoretical support for royal governance. As they set out to govern, however, the governors and their primary opponents fell prey to the conspiratorial outlook that pervaded English politics during the 1680s. Moreover, while officials in Whitehall theoretically supported their officers in the field, they proved reluctant to provide any actual support, leaving the new royal governments as mere ciphers with great theoretical powers but no means to turn their ideals into reality. The result was chaos and rebellion, the first examples of colonial subjects rising up against imperial centralization. At the same time, however, the news was not all bad for bureaucrats in Whitehall. After all, no one in either Bermuda or New Hampshire questioned the king’s right to remake the plantations; people simply disputed whether their governors were legitimate royal representatives. If the king found wiser men to rule the colonies, and supported them with even a few royal soldiers, future royal projects might prove more successful than the false starts in New Hampshire and Bermuda. In addition, the Bermuda debacle especially underscored the importance of security in colonial politics. In that case, it was fear of Spanish enemies, and the widespread belief that the governor was in league with them, that doomed the government. If this issue had been neutralized, it seemed, the people would have been more compliant.
In many ways, the campaign to remake Massachusetts reflected the lessons learned in the other old Puritan colonies. Unlike New Hampshire or Bermuda, Boston was important—not an economic powerhouse, perhaps, but a center of commerce with a large and growing population. Moreover,