In the summer of 1664 Charles II. sent a
couple of ships-of-war to Boston harbour, with 400 troops under command
of Colonel Richard Nichols, who had been appointed, along with Samuel
Maverick and two others as royal commissioners, to look after the
affairs of the New World. Colonel Nichols took his ships to New
Amsterdam, and captured that important town. After his return the
commissioners held meetings at Boston, and for a time the Massachusetts
charter seemed in danger. But the Puritan magistrates were shrewd, and
months were frittered away to no purpose. Presently the Dutch made war
upon England, and the king felt it to be unwise to irritate the people
of Massachusetts beyond endurance. The turbulent state of English
politics which followed still further absorbed his attention, and New
England had another respite of several years. [Sidenote: Founding of
Newark]
In New Haven a party had grown up which was dissatisfied with its
extreme theocratic policy and approved of the union with Connecticut.
Davenport and his followers, the founders of the colony, were beyond
measure disgusted. They spurned "the Christless rule" of the sister
colony. Many of them took advantage of the recent conquest of New
Netherland, and a strong party, led by the Rev. Abraham Pierson, of
Branford, migrated to the banks of the Passaic in June, 1667, and laid
the foundations of Newark.
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