Everything that Randolph could think of that would goad and irritate the
king, he reported in full to London; his letters were specimens of that
worst sort of lie that is based upon distorted half-truths; and his
malicious pen but seldom lay idle.
While waiting for the effects of these reports to ripen, Randolph was
busily intriguing with some of the leading men in Boston who were
dissatisfied with the policy of the dominant party, and under his
careful handling a party was soon brought into existence which was ready
to counsel submission to the royal will. Such was the birth of Toryism
in New England. The leader of this party was Joseph Dudley, son of
the grim verse-maker who had come over as lieutenant to Winthrop. The
younger Dudley was graduated at Harvard in 1665, and proceeded to study
theology, but soon turned his attention entirely to politics. In 1673 he
was a deputy from Roxbury in the General Court; in 1675 he took part in
the storming of the Narragansett fort; in 1677 and the three following
years he was one of the Federal Commissioners. In character and temper
he differed greatly from his father. Like the proverbial minister's son
whose feet are swift toward folly, Joseph Dudley seems to have learned
in stern bleak years of childhood to rebel against the Puritan theory of
life.
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