The character of the times connected religious intolerance with the contest. Episcopacy and monarchy were feared as natural allies: Anabaptists had appeared before the ministry in England as plaintiffs against Massachusetts, and could boast of the special favor of Charles II. The principles of toleration were rapidly gaining ground, and had repeatedly possessed a majority in one branch of the legislature; but in the fear of renewed aggressions from the royal power, a censorship over the press was established; and the distrust of all dissension from the established form of dissent renewed the energies of religious bigotry. The representatives resolved on measures conducive "to the glory of God, and to the felicity of his people; " that is, to a continuance of their religious institutions and government.

In January, 1663, the council for the colonies complained of Massachusetts "that the government there had withdrawn all manner of correspondence, as if intending to suspend their absolute obedience to the authority" of the king. False rumors, mingled with true reports, assisted to incense the court at St. James. Whalley and Goffe, it was currently asserted, were at the head of an army; the union of the four New England colonies was believed to have had its origin in the express "purpose of throwing off dependence on England." Sir Thomas Temple, Cromwell's governor of Acadia, had resided for years in New England, and now appeared as their advocate. "I assure you," such was Clarendon's message to Massachusetts, "of my true love and friendship to your country; neither in your privileges, charter, government, nor church discipline, shall you receive any prejudice." Yet the news was soon spread abroad that commissioners would be appointed to regulate the affairs of New England; and, early in 1664, there was room to believe that they had already embarked, and that ships-of-war would soon anchor in the harbor of Boston.

Precautionary measures were promptly adopted. The patent was delivered to a committee of four, by whom it was to be kept safely and secretly for the country. To guard against danger from an armed force, officers and soldiers were forbidden to land from ships, except in small parties; and strict obedience to the laws of Massachusetts was required

from them. The train-bands were reviewed; the command of the castle at the entrance of Boston harbor was confided to the trustworthy officer Davenport. A day of fasting and prayer was appointed. In that age of religious faith, every person but the sick was required to attend public worship; the mother took with her the nursling whom she could not leave. To appoint a day of fasting on a special occasion was to call together, in their respective assemblies, every individual of the colony, and, under divine sanction, to direct the attention of them all at one and the same time to a single subject. No mode of diffusing intelligence could equal this, which reached every one's ear.

In July, the fleet, equipped for the reduction of the Dutch settlements on the Hudson, arrived at Boston, bearing commissioners nominated by the duke of York and hostile to colonial liberties. "The main end and drift" of their appointment was to gain "a good footing and foundation for a further advance" of English power, by leading the people to submit to alterations in their charter; especially to yield up to the king the nomination or approbation of the governor, and the chief command of the militia. This instruction was secret; but it was known that they were charged to investigate the manner in which the charters of New England had been exercised, “with full authority to provide for the peace of the country, according to the royal instructions and their own discretion." No exertion of power was immediately attempted; but the people of Massachusetts descried the approach of tyranny, and their general court assembled to meet the danger.

It was agreed to levy two hundred men for the expected war against the Dutch, although no requisition for their services had been made. But the commission was considered a flagrant violation of chartered rights. In regard to the obedience due to a government, the inhabitants of Massachusetts distinguished between natural obedience and voluntary subjection. The child born on the soil of England is necessarily an English subject; but they held that, by the original right of expatriation, every man may withdraw from the land of his birth, and renounce all duty of allegiance with all claim

to protection. This they had done. Remaining in England, they acknowledged the obligatory force of established laws; because those laws were intolerable, they had emigrated to a new world, where they could all have organized their government, as many of them originally did, on the basis of natural rights and of perfect independence.

It had seemed good to them to retain their connection with England; but this connection they held to be purely voluntary; originally established and exclusively defined by the charter, which was the only existing compact connecting them with England. The right of England to the soil, under the pretence of discovery, they derided as a popish doctrine, derived from Alexander VI.; and they pleaded, as of more avail, their just occupation and their purchase from the natives.

As the establishment of a commission with discretionary powers was not specially sanctioned by their charter, they resolved to resist the orders of the king, and nullify his commission. While, therefore, the fleet was engaged in reducing New York, Massachusetts, in September, published an order prohibiting complaints to the commissioners; and, preparing a remonstrance, not against deeds of tyranny but the menace of tyranny, not against actual wrong but against a principle of wrong, on the twenty-fifth of October it thus addressed King Charles II.:

"DREAD SOVEREIGN: The first undertakers of this plantation did obtain a patent, wherein is granted full and absolute power of governing all the people of this place, by men chosen from among themselves, and according to such laws as they should see meet to establish. A royal donation, under the great seal, is the greatest security that may be had in human affairs. Under the encouragement and security of the royal charter, this people did, at their own charges, transport themselves, their wives and families, over the ocean, purchase the land of the natives, and plant this colony, with great labor, hazards, cost, and difficulties; for a long time wrestling with the wants of a wilderness and the burdens of a new plantation; having also now above thirty years enjoyed the privilege of GOVERNMENT WITHIN THEMSELVES, as their un

doubted right in the sight of God and man. To be governed by rulers of our own choosing and lawes of our own, is the fundamental privilege of our patent.

"A commission under the great seal, wherein four persons (one of them our professed enemy) are impowered to receive and determine all complaints and appeals according to their discretion, subjects us to the arbitrary power of strangers, and will end in the subversion of our all.

"If these things go on, your subjects here will either be forced to seeke new dwellings or sink under intolerable burdens. The vigor of all new endeavors will be enfeebled; the king himself will be a loser of the wonted benefit by customs, exported and imported from hence into England, and this hopeful plantation will in the issue be ruined.

"If the aime should be to gratify some particular gentlemen by livings and revenues here, that will also fail, for the poverty of the people. If all the charges of the whole government by the year were put together, and then doubled or trebled, it would not be counted for one of those gentlemen a considerable accommodation. To a coalition in this course the people will never come; and it will be hard to find another people that will stand under any considerable burden in this country, seeing it is not a country where men can subsist without hard labor and great frugality.

"God knows our greatest ambition is to live a quiet life, in a corner of the world. We came not into this wildernesse to seek great things to ourselves; and, if any come after us to seeke them heere, they will be disappointed. We keep ourselves within our line; a just dependence upon, and subjection to, your majestie, according to our charter, it is far from our hearts to disacknowledge. We would gladly do anything within our power to purchase the continuance of your favorable aspect. But it is a great unhappiness to have no testimony of our loyalty offered but this, to yield up our liberties, which are far dearer to us than our lives, and which we have willingly ventured our lives and passed through many deaths to obtain.

"It was Job's excellency, when he sat as king among his people, that he was a father to the poor. A poor people,

destitute of outward favor, wealth, and power, now cry unto their lord the king. May your majestie regard their cause, and maintain their right; it will stand among the marks of lasting honor to after generations."

The spirit of the people corresponded with this address. Did any appear to pay court to the commissioners, they became objects of derision. Even the writing to the king and chancellor was not held to be a duty; the compact by the charter required only the payment to the king of one fifth of all gold and silver ore; this was an obligation; any notice of the king beyond this was only by way of civility. It was also hoped to weary the English government by a tedious correspondence, which might be continued till the new revolution, of which they foreboded the approach. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish the instinct of fanaticism from the soundest judgment; sometimes fanaticism has the keenest sagacity. There were many in New England who confidently expected a revival of liberty after the restoration, and what was called "the slaying of the witnesses." "Who knows," it was asked, "what the event of this Dutch war will be?" The establishment of arbitrary power would bring in its train arbitrary taxation for the advantage of greedy courtiers. A report was spread that Massachusetts was to yield a revenue of five thousand pounds yearly for the king. Public meetings of the people were held; the brave and liberal Hawthorne, at the head of a company of train-bands, made a speech which royalists deemed "seditious;" and Endecott, of whom Charles II. had written to the colony as of a person not well affected, just as the last sands of life were running out, addressed the people at their meeting-house in Boston. The aged Davenport was equally unbending. "The commission," said he from New Haven, "is but a tryal of our courage; the Lord will be with his people while they are with him. If you consent to this court of appeals, you pluck down with your own hands the house which wisdom has built for you and your posterity."

In the elections, in the spring of 1665, the people sustained their government. Richard Bellingham, late deputy governor, the unbending, faithful old man, skilled from his youth in