The old charters were restored for the time. In September, 1691, Plymouth and the newly acquired territory of Acadia were united to Massachusetts under a new charter, which had been secured from the king chiefly through the agency of the Rev. Increase Mather, of Boston, now influential in colonial politics, as were also other members of the Mather family. In May following (1692) this new charter for Massachusetts was received at Boston. It was not as liberal as had been hoped. The people were allowed their representative assembly as before, but the governor was to be appointed by the Crown; the religious qualification for suffrage was abolished, a small property qualification (an estate of £40 value, or a freehold worth £2 a year) being substituted; laws passed by the General Court were subject to veto by the king,--a provision fraught with danger to the colonists. Thus Massachusetts became a Crown charter colony,--a position not uncomfortable so long as the executive and the legislature could agree. The first royal governor, Sir William Phipps (1692-1695), proved to be popular, generous, and well-meaning. He had a romantic history, but was of slender capacity, and owed his appointment to the favor of his pastor, Increase Mather. Connecticut and Rhode Island received their charters back; New Hampshire was governed by its new proprietor, Samuel Allen, but without a charter; Maine continued under Massachusetts,--the Bay Colony now extending from Rhode Island to New Brunswick, except for the short intervening strip of New Hampshire coast. It was fortunate for American liberty that the scheme of a consolidation of the New England colonies was put forward by the Stuarts too late for accomplishment. It was also fortunate that Massachusetts was flanked by and often competed with by her neighbors, Plymouth, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, who were protected against her by a jealous government in England, and that the Dutch cut off her ambitious territorial aspirations to the west. In the separate colonial life was sown the spirit of local patriotism which is now embodied in the American States. In New England, as in the South, there was a leading, but never a dominant, colony; the smaller colonies shared the experiences of the larger, but were freer from calamitous changes, and enjoyed in some respects governments which were more immediately under the control of the people. The end of the century saw all the New England colonies established on what seemed a permanent basis of loyalty to the Crown and of local independence. CHAPTER VIII. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN NEW ENGLAND IN 1700. 74. References. Bibliographies.--Same as §§ 47 and 63, above; Channing and Hart, _Guide_, § 130. Historical Maps.--Same as § 47, above.