The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume I Part 12
"1. That upon a review, all such laws and ordinances that are now, or have been during these late troubles, in practice there, and which are contrary or derogatory to the King's authority and government, shall be repealed.
"2. That the rules and prescriptions of the said Royal Charter for administering and taking the oath of allegiance, be henceforth duly observed.
"3. That the administration of justice be in the King's name.
"4. That since the principle and formation of that Charter was and is the freedom of liberty of conscience, we do hereby charge and require you that freedom of liberty be duly admitted and allowed, so that they that desire to use the Book of Common Prayer and perform their devotion in the manner that is established here, be not denied the exercise thereof, or undergo any prejudice or disadvantage thereby, they using the liberty peaceably, without any disturbance to others.
"5. That all persons of good and honest lives and conversations be admitted to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the said Book of Common Prayer, and their children to Baptism."[124]
Nothing could be more kind and a.s.suring than the terms of the King's letter, notwithstanding the former hostility of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay rulers to him and his Royal father,[125] and nothing could be more reasonable than the five conditions on which he a.s.sured them of the oblivion of the past and the continuance of the Royal Charter; but with not one of these conditions did they take a step to comply for several months, under the pretext of affording time, after publishing it, that "all persons might have opportunity to consider what was necessary to be done," though the "all persons" referred to included only one-sixth of the population: for the term "Freeman of Ma.s.sachusetts" was at that time, and for thirty years before and afterwards, synonymous with member of one of the Congregational Churches. And it was against their disloyalty and intolerance that the five conditions of the King's pardon were chiefly directed. With some of these conditions they never complied; with others only as they were compelled, and even complained of them afterwards as an invasion of their chartered privileges,[126]
though, in their first order for public thanksgiving for the King's letter, they spoke of it as a.s.suring "the continuance of peace, liberties and the gospel." Though the agent of Rhode Island met the agents of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony before the King, and challenged them to cite, in behalf of Ma.s.sachusetts, one act of duty or loyalty to the kings of England, in support of their present professions as loyal subjects; yet the King was not disposed to punish them for the past, but continue to them their privileges, as they desired and promised they would act with loyalty and tolerance in the future.[127]
The King's promised oblivion of the past and recognition of the Charter was hailed and a.s.sumed as _unconditional_, while the King's conditions were ignored and remained a dead letter. The elective franchise and eligibility for office were still, _as_ heretofore, the exclusive prerogative of Congregational Church members; the government of the colony was still in the hands alone of Congregational ministers and magistrates, and which they cleaved to as for life; their persecutions of those who did not worship as they did, continued without abatement; they persisted in their theocratic independence, and pretended to do all this under a Royal Charter which forbade their making laws or regulations contrary to the laws of England, acting also in the face of the King's conditions of pardoning their past offences, and perpetuating their Charter privileges.
The King's letter was dated the 28th of June, 1662, and was presented by Mr. Bradstreet and Mr. Norton to the Governor and General Court at Boston, 8th of October, 1662;[128] but it was not until a General Court called in August, 1664, that "the said letter was communicated to the whole a.s.sembly, according to his Majesty's command, and copies thereof spread abroad."[129] In the meantime they boasted of their Charter being recognised by the King, according, of course, to their own interpretation of it, while for _twenty-two months_ they withheld the King's letter, against his orders, from being published; concealing from the victims of their proscription and persecution the toleration which the King had announced as the conditions of his perpetuating the Charter.
It is not surprising that those proscribed and persecuted parties in Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony should complain to the King's Government that the local Government had denied them every privilege which his Majesty had a.s.sured to them through their friends in England, and by alleged orders to the Government of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, and therefore that the King's Government should determine to appoint Commissioners to proceed to the New England colonies to investigate the complaints made, and to regulate the affairs of the colonies after the disorders of the then recent civil war, during which the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Government had wholly identified itself with Cromwell, and acted in hostility to those other American colonies which would not renounce their allegiance to the Throne, and avow allegiance to the usurper.
It was not till the Government of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay saw that their silence could no longer be persisted in with safety, and that a Royal Commission was inevitable,[130] that they even published the King's letter, and then, as a means of further procrastination and delay, they appended their order that the conditions prescribed in the Royal letter, which "had influence upon the Churches as well as the civil state, should be suspended until the Court should take action thereon"--thus subordinating the orders of the King to the action of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Court.
From the Restoration, reports were most industriously circulated in the Bay Colony, designed to excite popular suspicion and hostility against the Royal Government, such as that their const.i.tution and Church privileges were to be suppressed, and superseded by a Royal Governor and the Episcopal hierarchy, etc.; and before the arrival of the Royal Commissioners the object of their appointment was misrepresented and their character a.s.sailed; it was pretended their commission was a bogus one, prepared "under an old hedge,"[131] and all this preparatory to the intended resistance of the Commissioners by the Governor and Council of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay.
The five conditions of continuing the Charter, specified in the King's letter of the 28th of June, 1662, the publication of which was suppressed by the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Court for nearly two years, and the intolerance and proscription which it was intended to redress being still practised, were doubtless among the causes which led to the appointment of the Royal Commissioners; but that Commission had reference to other colonies as well as Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, and to other subjects than the intolerant proscriptions of that colony.[132]
All the New England colonies except that of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay respectfully and cordially received the Royal Commissioners, and gave entire satisfaction in the matters which the Commissioners were intended to investigate.[133] The Congregational rulers of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay alone rejected the Royal Commissioners, denied their authority, and a.s.sailed their character. In the early history of Upper Canada, when one Church claimed to be established above every other, and the local Government sustained its pretensions as if authorized by law, it is known with what tenacity and denunciation the Canadian ecclesiastic-civil government resisted all appeals, both to the Local Legislature and to England, for a liberal government of equal laws and equal rights for all cla.s.ses of the King's subjects in Canada. But the excluded majority of the Canadians had little to complain of in comparison of the excluded majority of his Majesty's subjects of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony, where the only avenue to office, or even the elective franchise, was membership in the Congregational Church, and where no dissenter from that Church could have his children baptized, or worship G.o.d according to his conscience, except under pain of imprisonment, fine, banishment, or death itself.
The "Pilgrim Fathers" crossed the Atlantic to Plymouth in 1620, and the "Puritan Fathers" to Ma.s.sachusetts Bay in 1628, professedly for the same purpose, namely, liberty to worship G.o.d without the imposition of ceremonies of which they disapproved. The "Pilgrim Fathers," as true and consistent friends of liberty, exercised full liberty of worship for themselves, and left others to enjoy the same liberty of worship which they enjoyed; but the "Puritan Fathers" exercised their liberty not only by abandoning the Church and worship which they professed when they left England, and setting up a Congregational worship, but by prohibiting every other form of worship, and its adherents with imprisonment, fine, exile, and death. And under this pretext of liberty of worship for themselves, they proscribed and persecuted all who differed from them in religious worship for fifty years, until their power to do so was taken from them by the cancelling of the Charter whose provisions they had so persistently and so cruelly abused, in contradistinction to the tolerant and liberal conduct of their brethren and neighbours of the Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut colonies. In note on page 148, I have given extracts of the Report of the Royal Commissioners relative to these colonies and their conduct and treatment of the Commissioners; and in the lengthened extract of the report relative to Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony, it is seen how different was the spirit and government of the rulers of that colony, both in respect to their fellow-colonists and their Sovereign, from that of the rulers of the other New England colonies, which had, indeed, to seek royal protection against the oppressions and aggressions of the more powerful domineering Government of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay. The rulers of this colony alone rejected the Royal Commissioners. For nearly two years the King's letter of the 28th of June, 1662 (given in note on page 140), pardoning their acts of disloyalty and a.s.suring them of the continuance of their Charter on certain conditions, remained unpublished and unnoticed; but on the appointment of the Royal Commissioners, in 1664, they proceeded to acknowledge the kindness of the King's letter of 1662, and other Royal letters; then changing their tone, they protest against the Royal Commission. They sent a copy of their address to the King, to Lord Chancellor Clarendon, who, in connection with the Earl of Manchester and Lord Say, had befriended them. They also wrote to others of their friends, and among others to the Hon. and celebrated Robert Boyle, than whom no man had shown himself a warmer or more generous friend to their colony. I will give, not in successive notes, but in the text, their address to the King, the King's reply, Lord Clarendon's and the Hon.
Robert Boyle's letters to them on the subject of their address to the King, and their rejection and treatment of the Royal Commission. I will then give the sentiments of what is called the "Pet.i.tion of the minority" of their own community on the subject, and their own answers to the chief propositions of the Royal Commissioners. From all this it will appear that the United Empire Loyalists were the true liberals, the advocates of universal toleration and of truly liberal government; while the rulers of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay were the advocates of religious intolerance and persecution of a government by a single religious denomination, and hostile to the supreme authority of England, as well as to their more tolerant and loyal fellow-colonists.
I will first give their characteristic address, called "Pet.i.tion" or "Supplication," to the King. I do so without abridgment, long as it is, that I may not be chargeable with unfairness. It is as follows:--
Copy of the Address of the Ma.s.sachusetts Colony to King Charles the Second, in 1664:
"To the King's Most Excellent Majestie.--The humble Supplication of the General Court of the Ma.s.sachusetts Colony, in New England.
"DREAD SOVEREIGN,
"Iff your poor subjects, who have removed themselves into a remote corner of the earth to enjoy peace with G.o.d and man, doe, in this day of their trouble, prostrate themselves at your Royal feet, and beg your favour, we hope it will be graciously accepted by your Majestie, and that as the high place you sustain on earth doth number you here among the G.o.ds, for you well imitate the G.o.d of heaven, in being ready to maintain the cause of the afflicted, and the right of the poor,[135] and to receive their cries and addresses to that end. And we humbly beseech your Majestie with patience and clemency to heare and accept our plain discourse, tho' of somewhat greater length than would be comely in other or lesser cases. We are remote,[136] and can speake but seldom, and therefore crave leave to speake the more at once. Wee shall not largely repeat how that the first undertakers for this Plantation, having by considerable summs purchased the right thereof granted to the Council established at Plimouth by King James, your Royal grandfather, did after obtain a patent given and confirmed to themselves by your Royal father, King Charles the First, wherein it is granted to them, and their heirs, a.s.signs and a.s.sociates for ever, not only the absolute use and propriety of the tract of land therein mentioned, but also full and absolute power of governing[137] all the people of this place, by men chosen from among themselves, and according to such lawes as they shall from time to time see meet to make and establish, being not repugnant to the laws of England (they paying only the fifth part of the ore of gold and silver that shall here be found, for and in respect of all duties, demands, exactions, and service whatsoever), as in the said patent is more at large declared. Under the encouragement and security of which Royal Charter this people did, at their own charges,[138] transport themselves, their wives and families, over the ocean, purchase the lands of the natives, and plant this colony, with great labour, 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 30 years enjoyed the aforesaid power and priviledge of government within themselves, as their undoubted right in the sight of G.o.d and man,[139]
and having had, moreover, this further favour from G.o.d and from your Majestie, that wee have received several gracious letters from your Royal selfe, full of expressions tending to confirme us in our enjoyments, viz., in your Majestie's letter bearing date the 15th day of February, 1660, you are pleased to consider New England as one of the chiefest of your colonies and plantations abroad, having enjoyed and grown up in a long and orderly establishment, adding this royal promise: 'Wee shall not come behind any of our royal predecessors in a just encouragement and protection of all our loving subjects there.' In your Majestie's letter of the 28th of June, 1662, sent us by our messengers, besides many other gracious expressions, there is this: 'Wee will preserve and do hereby confirme the patent and Charter heretofore granted unto them by our Royal father of blessed memory, and they shall freely enjoy all the privileges and liberties granted unto them in and by the same.'[140] As for such particulars, of a civil and religious nature, as are subjoined in the said letter, we have applyed ourselves to the utmost to satisfy your Majesty, so far as doth consist with conscience, of our duty toward G.o.d and the just liberties and privileges of our patent.[141] Wee are further bound, with humble thankfulness, to acknowledge your Majestie's gracious expressions in your last letter we have received, dated April 23, 1664, as (besides other instances thereof) that your Majestie hath not the least intention or thought of violating, or in the least degree infringing, the Charter heretofore granted by your Royal father with great wisdom, and upon full deliberation, etc.
"But what affliction of heart must it needs be unto us, that our sins have provoked G.o.d to permit our adversaries to set themselves against us by their misinformations, complaints and solicitations (as some of them have made it their worke for many years), and thereby to procure a commission under the great seal, wherein four persons (one of them our knowne and professed enemy) are impowered to hear, receive, examine and determine all complaints and appeals, in all causes and matters as well military as criminal and civil, and to proceed in all things, for settling this country according to their good and sound discretion, etc., whereby, instead of being governed by rulers of our owne choosing (which is the fundamental privilege of our patent), and by lawes of our owne, wee are like to be subjected to the arbitary power of strangers, proceeding not by any established law, but by their own discretion. And whereas our patent gives a sufficient royal warrant and discharge to all officers and persons for executing the lawes here made and published, as is therein directed, we shall now not be discharged, and at rest from further molestation, when wee have so executed and observed our lawes, but be liable to complaints and appeales, and to the determinations of new judges, whereby our government and administrations will be made void and of none effect. And though we have yet had but a little taste of the words or actings of these gentlemen that are come over hither in this capacity of Commissioners, yet we have had enough to confirm us in our feares that their improvement of this power, in pursuance of their commission (should the same proceed), will end in the subversion of our all. We should be glad to hope that your Majesty's instructions (which they have not been pleased to impart to us) may put such limitations to their business here as will take off our fear; but according to the present appearance of things, we thus speak.
"In this case (dread Sovereign), our refuge under G.o.d is your royal selfe, whom we humbly address ourselves unto, and are the rather emboldened therein because your Majesty's last gracious letter doth encourage us to suggest what, upon the experience we have had, and observations we have made, we judge necessary or convenient for the good and benefit of this plantation, and because we are well persuaded that had your Majestie a full and right information of the state of things here,[142] you would find apparent reason to put a stop to these proceedings, which are certainly discervient to your Majesty's interest and to the prosperity and welfare of this place.
"If these things go on (according to the present appearance), your subjects here will either be forced to seek new dwellings, or sink and faint under burdens that will to them be intolerable. The rigour of all new endeavours in the several callings and occupations (either for merchandise abroad or for subduing this wilderness at home) will be enfeebled, as we perceive it already begins to be, the good of converting the natives obstructed, the inhabitants driven to we know not what extremities, and this hopeful plantation in the issue ruined. But whatever becomes of us, we are sure the adversary cannot countervail the King's damages.
"It is indeed a grief to our hearts to see your Majesty put upon this extraordinary charge and cost about a business the product whereof can never reimburse the one half of what will be expended upon it. Imposed rulers and officers will have occasion to expend more than can be raised here, so as nothing will return to your Majesty's exchequer; but instead thereof, the wonted benefit of customs, exported and imported into England from hence, will be diminished by discouragement and diminution of men's endeavours in their several occupations; or if the aim should be to gratify some particular by livings and revenues here that will also fail, where nothing is to be had, the King himself will be loser, and so will the case be formed here; for such is the poverty and meanness of the people (by reason of the length and coldness of the winters, the difficulty of subduing a wilderness, defect of staple commodity, the want of money, etc.), that if with hard labour men get a subsistence for their families, 'tis as much as the generality are able to do, paying but very small rates towards the public charges; and yet if all the country hath ordinarily raised by the year for all the charges of the whole government were put together and then doubled or trebled, it would not be counted, for one of these gentlemen, a considerable accommodation.[143]
"It is true, that the estates men have in conjunction with hard labour and vigorous endeavours in their several places do bring in a comfortable subsistence for such a mean people (we do not diminish our thankfulness to G.o.d, that he provides for us in a wilderness as he doth), yet neither will the former stand or the latter be discouraged, nor will both ever answer the ends of those that seek great things.
"We perceive there have been great expectations of what is to be had here raised by some men's informations. But those informations will prove fallacious, disappointing them that have relied upon them; and if the taking of this course should drive the people out of the country (for to a coalition therein they will never come), it will be hard to find another people that will stay long or stand under any considerable burden in it, seeing it is not a country where men can subsist without hard labour and great frugality.
"There have also been high representations of great divisions and discontents among us, and of a necessity of sending commissioners to relieve the aggrieved, etc.; whereas it plainly appears that the body of this colony are unanimously satisfied in the present government, and abhorrent from change, and that what is now offered will, instead of relieving, raise up such grievances as are intolerable. We suppose there is no government under heaven wherein some discontented persons may not be found; and if it be a sufficient accusation against a government that there are some such, who will be innocent? Yet, through the favour of G.o.d, there are but few amongst us that are malcontent, and fewer that have cause to be so.
"Sir, the all-knowing G.o.d knows our greatest ambition is to live a poor and quiet life, in a corner of the world, without offence to G.o.d or man.
We came not in this wilderness to seek great things for ourselves; and if any come after us to seek them here, they will be disappointed. We keep ourselves within our line, and meddle not with matters abroad; a just dependence upon and subjection to your Majesty, according to our Charter, it is far from our hearts to disacknowledge. We so highly prize your favourable aspect (though at so great a distance), as we would gladly do anything that is within our power to purchase the continuance of it. We are willing to testify our affection to your Majesty's service, by answering the proposal of your honourable Commissioners, of which we doubt not but that they have already given your Majesty an account. We are carefully studious of all due subjection to your Majesty, and that not only for wrath, but for conscience sake; and should Divine Providence ever offer an opportunity wherein we might, in any righteous way, according to our poor and mean capacity, testify our dutiful affection to your Majesty, we hope we should most gladly embrace it. But it is a great unhappiness to be reduced to so hard a case, as to have no other testimony of our subjection and loyalty offered us but this, viz., to destroy our own being, which nature teacheth us to preserve; or to yield up our liberties, which are far dearer to us than our lives, and which, had we had any fears of being deprived of, we had never wandered from our fathers' houses into these ends of the earth, nor laid our labours or estates therein; besides engaging in a most hazardous and difficult war, with the most warlike of the natives, to our great charge and the loss of some of the lives of our dear friends.
Neither can the deepest invention of man find out a more certain way of consistence than to obtain a Royal donation from so great a prince under his great seal, which is the greatest security that may be had in human affairs.
"Royal Sir, it is in your power to say of your poor people in New England, they shall not die. If we have found favour in the sight of our King, let our life be given us at our pet.i.tion (or rather that which is dearer than life, that we have ventured our lives, and willingly pa.s.sed through many deaths to obtain), and our all at our request. Let our government live, our patent live, our magistrates live, our laws and liberties live, our religious enjoyments live; so shall we all yet have further cause to say from our hearts, let the King live for ever. And the blessing of them that were ready to perish shall come upon your Majesty; having delivered the poor that cried, and such as had none to help them. It was an honour to one of your royal ancestors that he was called the poor man's king. It was Job's excellency that he sat as king among his people--that he was a father to the poor. They are a poor people (dest.i.tute of outward favour, wealth and power) who now cry to their lord the King. May your Majesty please to regard their cause and maintain their right. It will stand among the marks of lasting honour to after generations. And we and ours shall have lasting cause to rejoice, that we have been numbered among your Majesty's most humble servants and suppliants.
"25th October, 1664."
As the Ma.s.sachusetts Governor and Council had endorsed a copy of the foregoing pet.i.tion to the Earl of Clarendon, then Lord Chancellor (who had dictated, with the Puritan ministers of the King, his generous letter of the 28th of June, 1662), I will here insert Lord Clarendon's reply to them, in which he vindicates the appointment of the Commissioners, and exposes the unreasonableness of the statements and conduct of the Ma.s.sachusetts Court. The letter is as follows:
Copy of a letter from the Earl of Clarendon to the Ma.s.sachusetts Colony in 1664:--
"MR. GOVERNOR AND GENTLEMEN,
"I have received yours of the 7th of November, by the hands of Mr.
Ashurst, a very sober and discreet person, and did (by his communicating it to me) peruse the pet.i.tion you had directed to his Majesty; and I do confess to you, I am so much a friend to your colony that if the same had been communicated to n.o.body but myself, I should have dissuaded the presenting the same to his Majesty, who I doubt will not think himself well treated by it, or the singular care he hath expressed of his subjects in those parts sufficiently acknowledged; but since I found by your letter to my Lord Chamberlaine and Mr. Boyle, that you expect some effect from your pet.i.tion, upon conference with them wee all agreed not to hinder the delivery of it, though I have read to them and Mr. Ashurst every word of the instructions the Commissioners have; and they all confessed that his Majesty could not expresse more grace and goodness for that his plantation, nor put it more out of their power in any degree to invade the liberties and privileges granted to you by your Charter; and therefore wee were all equally amazed to find that you demand a revokation of the Commission and Commissioners, without laying the least matter to their charge of crymes or exorbitances. What sense the King hath of your addresse to him, you will, I presume, heare from himself, or by his direction. I shall only tell you that as you had long cause to expect that the King would send Commissioners thither, so that it was absolutely necessary he should do so, to compose the differences amongst yourselves of which he received complaint, and to do justice to your neighbours, which they demand from his royall hands. I know not what you mean by saying, the Commissioners have power to exercise government there altogether inconsistent with your Charter and privileges, since I am sure their commission is to see and provide for the due and full observation of the Charter, and that all the privileges granted by that Charter may be equally enjoyed by all his Majesty's subjects there. I know they are expressly inhibited from intermeddling with or obstructing the administration of justice, according to the formes observed there; but if in truth, in any extraordinary case, the proceedings there have been irregular, and against the rules of justice, as some particular cases particularily recommended to them by his Majesty, seeme to be, it cannot be presumed that his Majesty hath or will leave his subjects of New England without hope of redresse by any appeale to him, which his subjects of all his other kingdoms have free liberty to make. I can say no more to you but that it is in your owne power to be very happy, and to enjoy all that hath been granted to you; but it will be absolutely necessary that you perform and pay all that reverence and obedience which is due from subjects to their king, and which his Majesty will exact from you, and doubts not but to find from the best of that colony both in quality and in number. I have no more to add but that I am,
"Gentlemen,
"Your affectionate servant,
"CLARENDON, C.
"Worcester House, 15 March, 1665."
To Lord Clarendon's letter I will add the letter of the Honourable Robert Boyle to Governor Endicot. The Hon. Robert Boyle was not only distinguished as the first philosopher of his age, but as the founder of the Royal Society and the President of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England--the Society which supported John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians of New England--for the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Government neither established nor supported his mission to the Indians.
New England never had a warmer and more benevolent friend than the celebrated Robert Boyle, who, in a letter dated March 17th, 1665, and addressed to the Governor Endicot and the Ma.s.sachusetts Court, after acknowledging their resolution of thanks, through Mr. Winthrop, to him for his exertions on their behalf, proceeds as follows:
"I dealt very sincerely with Mr. Winthrop in what I informed him concerning the favourable inclinations I had found both in his Majesty and in my Lord Chancellor toward the united colonies of New England; and though his lordship again repeats and confirms the a.s.surances he had authorized me to give to your friends in the city, yet I cannot but acquaint you with this, observing that in your last addresses to his Majesty, and letters to his lordship, there are some pa.s.sages that were much more unexpected than welcome; insomuch that not only those who are unconcerned in your affairs, but the most considerable persons that favour you in England, have expressed to me their being unsatisfied in some of the particulars I am speaking of. And it seems generally unreasonable that when the King had so graciously remitted all that was past, and upon just and important inducements, sent Commissioners to promote the welfare of your colony, you should (in expressions not over manly or respectfully worded) be importunate with him to do an action likely to blemish his wisdom or justice, or both, as immediately to recall public ministers from so remote a part of the world before they or any of them be so much as accused of any one crime or miscarriage.
"And since you are pleased I should concern myself in this business, I must deal so ingenuously with you as to inform you, that hearing about your affairs, I waited upon my Lord Chancellor (and finding him, though not satisfied with your late proceedings, yet neither your enemy, nor indisposed to be your favourer as before). His lordship was pleased, with a condescending and unexpected freedom, to read himself, not only to me, but to another good friend of yours that I brought along with me, the whole instructions and all the other papers that were delivered to the Commissioners, and by the particulars of those it appeared to us both that they had been so solicitous, viz., in the things that related to your Charter, and especially to the liberty of your consciences, that I could not but wonder at it, and add to the number of those that cannot think it becomes his Majesty to recall Commissioners sent so far with no other instructions than those, before they have time to do any part of the good intended you by themselves, and before they are accused of having done any one harmful thing, even in your private letters either to me or (as far as I know) to any of your friends here, who will be much discouraged from appearing on your behalf; and much disabled to do it successfully so long as such proceedings as these that relate to the Commissioners supply others with objections which those that wish you well are unable to answer.
"I should not have taken this liberty, which the honour of your letter ought to have filled with little less than acknowledgment, if the favourable construction you have made of my former endeavours to do you good offices did not engage me to continue them, though in a way which (in my poor apprehension) tends very directly to serve you, whether I do or no to please you; and as I presume you will receive, both from his Majesty and my Lord Chancellor, express a.s.surances that there is nothing intended in violation to your Charter, so if the Commissioners should break their instructions and endeavour to frustrate his Majesty's just and favourable intentions towards you, you may find that some of your friends here were not backward to accuse the Commissioners upon general surmises that may injure you, than they will be ready to represent your grievances, in case they shall actually oppress you; which, that they may never do, is not more the expectation of them that recommended them to you than it is the hearty wish of a person who, upon the account of your faithfulness and care of so good a work as the conversion of the natives among you, is in a peculiar manner concerned to shew himself, honoured Sir, your most affectionate and most humble servant,[144]
"RO. BOYLE."
But in addition to the benevolent and learned Robert Boyle and their other friends in England, besides Lord Clarendon and the King, who disapproved of their pretentious spirit and proceedings, there were numbers of their own fellow-colonists who equally condemned the a.s.sumptions and conduct of Governor Endicot and his Council. It has been shown in a previous chapter that in connection with the complete suppression of the freedom of the press, pet.i.tioners to the Governor and Court were punished for any expressions in their pet.i.tions which complained of the acts or proceedings of the Court. It therefore required no small degree of independence and courage for any among them to avow their dissent from the acts of rulers so despotic and intolerant. Yet, at this juncture of the rejection of the Royal Commission, and the denial of the King's authority, there were found United Empire Loyalists and Liberals, even among the Congregational "freemen" of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, who raised the voice of remonstrance against this incipient separation movement. A pet.i.tion was prepared and signed by nearly two hundred of the inhabitants of Boston, Salem, Newbury, and Ipswich, and presented to the Court. The compiler of the "Danforth Papers," in the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Collection, says: "Next follows the pet.i.tion in which the minority of our forefathers have exhibited so much good sense and sound policy." The following is an extract of the Boston pet.i.tion, addressed "To the Honourable General Court now a.s.sembled in Boston:"
"May it please the Hon. Court:
"Your humble pet.i.tioners, being informed that letters are lately sent from his Majesty to the Governor and Council, expressive of resentment of the proceedings of this colony with his Commissioners lately sent hither, and requiring also some princ.i.p.al persons therein, with command upon their allegiance to attend his Majesty's pleasure in order to a final determination of such differences and debates as have happened between his Majesty's Commissioners and the Governor here, and which declaration of his Majesty, your pet.i.tioners, looking at as a matter of the greatest importance, justly calling for the most serious consideration, that they might not be wanting, either to yourselves in withholding any encouragement that their concurrence might afford in so arduous a matter, nor to themselves and the country in being involved by their silence in the dangerous mistakes of (otherwise well united) persons inclining to disloyal principles, they desire they may have liberty without offence to propose some of their thoughts and fears about the matter of your more serious deliberation.
"Your pet.i.tioners humbly conceive that those who live in this age are no less than others concerned in that advice of the wise man, to keep the King's commandment, because of the oath of G.o.d, and not to be tardy to go out of his sight that doth whatever pleaseth him; wherefore they desire that seeing his Majesty hath already taken no little displeasure against us, as if we disowned his Majesty's jurisdiction over us, effectual care be taken, lest by refusing to attend his Majesty's order for clearing our pretences unto right and favour in that particular, we should plunge ourselves into great disfavour and danger.