properties in Connecticut. In addition to hiring an experienced metal refiner in England, he also recruited German miners; the area near the Simsbury mine became known as "Hanover" as a consequence of their presence. (Belcher had previously toured mines in the Harz mountains on his first visit to the Hanover.) Agent and councilor Colonel Elizeus Burges was commissioned as governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire by the new king. Belcher, along with compatriot Jeremiah Dummer, representing opponents of a land bank proposal that Burges had promised to support, bribed him £1,000 to resign before he left England. Dummer and Belcher were then instrumental in promoting Samuel Shute as an alternative to Burges, believing among other things that he was likely to be well received in New England because he was from a prominent Dissenting family. They also coached Shute on the political situation in the province after he won the appointment. Shute arrived in Boston on 4 October 1716, where he began a difficult and contentious tenure in office. He signaled his partisanship by first taking up residence with Paul Dudley, son of the last-appointed governor Joseph Dudley and a land bank opponent, rather than Acting Governor William Tailer. Belcher was elected to the Massachusetts Governor's Council in 1718. During Shute's tenure Belcher was seen as part of a political faction that generally supported the governor. He was consequently on and off the council several times, blocked by the efforts of populist leader Elisha Cooke Jr. This struggle continued after Shute left the province at the end of 1722 to prosecute his differences with the assembly with the Privy Council in London. Belcher, however, became increasingly unhappy that Paul Dudley wielded more influence than he did during the administration of William Dummer (who was Dudley's brother-in-law) that followed. When William Burnet arrived in 1728 as governor Belcher was unexpectedly elected moderator of Boston's town meeting in an election apparently engineered by Cooke. In Burnet's dispute with the assembly over his salary (which exceeded that of Shute in its acrimony and occupied most of Burnet's brief tenure), Cooke and Belcher made common cause over the issue. Belcher was elected by the assembly as an agent to London to explain the colonial position on the governor's salary, and Cooke helped raise the funds needed for the trip. Governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire In 1729, while Belcher was in London, news arrived