On Tuesday, January 26, 1692, Robin Orchard came to Boston from Cape Cod, bringing tidings that Capt. Dolberry’s London packet was at anchor in the harbor now known as Provincetown, and that she had brought the news of the appointment of Phips under a new charter.[167] Boston was at this time the most considerable place in the New World, and she probably had not far from 7,000 inhabitants; while Massachusetts, as now constituted, included 75 towns, of which 17 belonged to Plymouth. Within this enlarged jurisdiction the population ranged somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000,—for estimates widely vary. Out of this number twenty-eight persons had been chosen to make the governor’s council, but their places were to be made good at subsequent elections by the assembly, though the governor could negative any objectionable candidate; and the joint approval of the governor and council was necessary to establish the members of the judiciary. The acts of the legislature could for cause be rejected by the Privy Council any time within three years, and to it they must be regularly submitted for approval; and this proved to be no merely formal action. It meant much. These conditions created a new political atmosphere for Massachusetts. Religion and politics had in the old days gone hand in hand, and the little book which Joshua Scottow, one of the old patriarchs, now printed, _Old Men’s Tears_, forcibly reminded them of the change. The community was more and more engrossed with trade; and those that concerned themselves with politics were not near so closely of one mind as formerly; and there was lacking that invigorating motive of saving their charter which had so unified the thoughts and banded the energies of the community in former years. On the 14th of May, 1692, the “Nonesuch” frigate cast anchor in Boston harbor. When Phips and Mather disembarked, eight companies of soldiers received and escorted them to their respective houses. “Made no volleys, because ‘twas Satterday night,” says Sewall, recording the event.[168] The ceremony of inauguration was no sooner over than all parties began to take their bearings; and Mather, not long after,[169] in an election sermon, took occasion to defend the policy of his recent mission. It remained to be seen how much the province was to gain from its closer connection with the home government. Was it to claim and secure larger assistance in repressing Indian outbreaks and repelling French encroachments?—for these things were brought home to them by the arrival of every messenger from the frontiers, by the surveillance under which they had put all Frenchmen who chanced to be in their seaports, and by the loads of wine-casks which paraded the streets of Boston when the “Swan” (September 20, 1692) brought in a French prize. It was not till October 23d that Cooke and Oakes reached home, and the old-charter party had once more its natural leaders; Cooke, at least, bringing to it the influence of wealth.[170]