[5] Dudley served for several years as a commissioner to the New England Confederation, and was sent by the administration on diplomatic missions to neighboring Indian communities.

Crown agent Edward Randolph was sent to New England in 1676 to collect customs duties and to enforce the Navigation Acts, and in the process he documented a list of issues and took his complaints to the Lords of Trade in London.

Dudley was part of a moderate faction which supported accommodating the king's demands, along with his brother-in-law Simon Bradstreet and William Stoughton, and they were opposed by others who did not want the crown to interfere in the colony's business.

Dudley brought this news to Boston at the end of 1683, igniting a heated debate in the legislature, with the opposition party again prevailing.

However, there were difficulties in drafting a commission for intended governor Sir Edmund Andros, and this prompted Randolph to propose an interim appointment.

[19] Dudley was chosen for this post based on Randolph's recommendation, and a commission was issued to him on October 8, 1685, as President of the Council of New England.

[24] According to Randolph, the Puritan magistrates "were of opinion that God would never suffer me to land again in this country, and thereupon began in a most arbitrary manner to assert their power higher than at any time before.

[26] Dudley made a number of judicial appointments, generally favoring the political moderates who had supported accommodation of the king's wishes in the battle over the old charter.

Dudley's position as judge brought him the harshest criticisms and complaints,[39] in particular when he enforced unpopular laws imposed by Andros concerning taxes, town meetings, and land titles.

[41] He stayed in jail for ten months, in part for his own safety, and was then sent back to England at the command of King William, along with Andros and other dominion leaders.

In addition to his council duties,[44] he negotiated with New York's Indians[45] and sat as chief judge in the trial of Jacob Leisler, who had led the rebellion in 1689 that overthrew Andros' lieutenant governor Francis Nicholson.

[47] Governor Sloughter was initially opposed to immediately executing Leisler and his main ally and son-in-law Jacob Milborne, preferring to defer the decision to the king.

Cotton Mather claimed that Dudley was an influential force arguing for Leisler's execution, although this is disputed by testimony from anti-Leisler councillor Nicholas Bayard.

He managed temporarily to mend political fences with Constantine Phips and Cotton Mather, and he began lobbying for the Massachusetts governorship after the death of Bellomont in 1701.

[63] Dudley pressed his complaint in letters to London, in which he complained of men "who love not the Crown and Government of England to any manner of obedience".

[64] He wrote in one letter to his son Paul, then the provincial attorney general, "this country will never be worth living in for lawyers and gentlemen, till the charter is taken away.

[66] In contrast, his tenure as Governor of New Hampshire was popular; its legislature specifically praised him to the Queen after learning of complaints levelled against him by his Massachusetts opponents.

[68] Dudley called out the militia and licensed privateers to raid French shipping, such as Thomas Larimore;[69] he also fortified the Massachusetts and New Hampshire frontiers from the Connecticut River to southern Maine.

[71] Boston merchants and the Mathers accused Dudley of being in league with smugglers and others who were illegally trading with the French, in part because he specifically refused permission for Church to attack the Acadian capital and commercial center of Port Royal.

[73] In 1708, a bitter attack on his administration was published in London entitled The Deplorable State of New England by reason of a Covetous and Treacherous Governor and Pusillanimous Counsellors, as part of a campaign to have him recalled.

[75] Support arrived from England in 1710, and a successful siege led to the fall of Port Royal and the beginning of the Province of Nova Scotia.

[79] The war quieted to some extent after the fall of Port Royal, with only small raiding parties hitting frontier communities, and peace came in 1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht.

He hoped to separate the western Kennebec tribe from French influence and consequently adopted a fairly hard line, threatening to withhold trade that was vital to their survival and reiterating claims of British sovereignty over them.

The Equivalent Lands amounted to over 100,000 acres (400 km2) on either side of the Connecticut River in northern Massachusetts, southeastern Vermont, and southwestern New Hampshire.

[89] However, Dudley's political opponents were active in London, especially those involved in the land bank proposal, and they convinced the king to appoint Colonel Elizeus Burges as governor later in the year.

[citation needed] Dudley owned large tracts of land in Massachusetts when he died, principally in Roxbury and Worcester County.

The Worcester properties he purchased from the Nipmuc in partnership with William Stoughton, and he was granted land in Oxford, Massachusetts for the purpose of settling French Huguenots.

[97] Edward Randolph wrote that it was "impossible to bring titles of land to trial before them where his Majesties's rights are concerned, the Judges also being parties.

[5] Historian John Palfrey wrote that Dudley "united rich intellectual attributes with a groveling soul", forging political connections and relationships in his early years for the purpose of his own advancement.

"[100] Biographer Everett Kimball adds that Dudley "possessed a good deal of tact and personal charm, by which, when everything else failed, he could sometimes transform an enemy into a friend.