Joseph Dudley was the son of that old governor who wrote the verses about the cockatrice to be hatched by toleration, yet he inherited very little of his father’s disposition. He was bred for the ministry, and as the career did not attract him, he turned to politics, in which he made a brilliant opening. At first he was the hope of the high churchmen, but they afterward learned to hate him with a rancor exceptional even toward their enemies. And he gave them only too good a handle against him, for he was guilty of the error of selling himself without reserve to the Andros government. At the Revolution he suffered a long imprisonment, and afterward went to England, where he passed most of William’s reign. There his ability soon brought him forward, he was made lieutenant-governor of the Isle of Wight, was returned to Parliament, and at last appointed governor by Queen Anne. Though Massachusetts owes a deeper debt to few of her chief magistrates, there are few who have found scantier praise at the hands of her historians. He was, it is true, an unscrupulous politician and courtier, but his mind was broad and vigorous, his policy wise and liberal, and at the moment of his power his influence was of inestimable value. Among his other gifts, he was endowed with infinite tact, and when working for his office he managed not only to conciliate the Mathers, but even to induce the son to write a letter in his favor; and so when he arrived in 1702 they were both sedulous in their attentions in the expectation of controlling him. A month had not passed, however, before this ominous entry was made in the younger’s diary:-- “June 16, 1702. I received a visit from Governour Dudley.... I said to him ... I should be content, I would approve it, ... if any one should say to your excellency, ‘By no means let any people have cause to say, that you take all your measures from the two Mr. Mathers.’ By the same rule I may say without offence,’ By no means let any people say, that you go by no measures in your conduct, but Mr. Byfield’s and Mr. Leverett’s.’... The WRETCH went unto those men and told them, that I had advised him to be no ways advised by them; and inflamed them into an implacable rage against me.” [Footnote: _Mass. Hist. Coll._ first series, iii. 137.]