amongst ourselves in the due observance of obedience and fidelity unto the authority of England and our own just privileges; — for the effecting whereof it is ordered by this Court, that Mr. Simon Bradstreet, Mr. Samuel Symonds, Major-General Denison, Mr. Danforth, Major William Hawthorne, Captain Thomas Savage, Captain Edward Johnson, Captain Eliazer Lusher, Mr. Mather, Mr. Norton, Mr. Cobbet, and Mr. Mitchell be, and hereby are, appointed a committee, immediately after the dissolution or adjournment of the Court, to meet together in Boston on second day next, at twelve of the clock, to consider and debate such matter or thing of public concernment touching our patent, laws, privileges, and duty to his Majesty, as they in their wisdom shall judge most expedient, and draw up the result of their apprehensions, and present the same to the next session for consideration and approbation, that so (if the will of God be) we may speak and act the same thing, becoming prudent, honest, conscientious, and faithful men."1 The four persons first named on this Committee were Magistrates; the next four were respectively Deputies from Salem, Boston, Woburn, and Dedham; the last four were the ministers of Dorchester, Boston, Ipswich, and Cambridge. At a special session of the General Court, held after an interval of only a few days, the Committee made a report, which was "allowed and approved." It was signed for them by Thomas Danforth, who was probably its author, and who from this time occupied for thirty years a large space in the public view. The document is too important to admit June 10. 1 Mass. Rec., IV. (ii.) 24. • Thomas Danforth, born at Framlingham, in Suffolk, in 1622, came, with his father, Nicholas, to New England, in 1634, when the family settled in Cambridge. He became a freeman in 1643 (Mass. Rec., II. 293); was a Deputy in the General Court for that town in 1657 and 1658 (Ibid., IV. (i.) 287, 321); and in the following year (Ibid., 364) was chosen an Assistant, in which office he continued for twenty years, till promoted to be Deputy-Governor. In the charter of 1650, he was named Treasurer of Harvard College, which office he held eighteen years. of its being incorporated into this narrative in only a description or an abridgment. We learn from it what was the approved theory respecting the relations of the local government to the empire; and it indicates that, if the public courage had been shaken at any time, its tone had been restored by the recent consultations. "I. Concerning our Liberties. "1. We conceive the patent (under God) to be the first and main foundation of our civil polity here, by a Governor and Company, according as is therein expressed. "2. The Governor and Company are, by the patent, a body politic, in fact and name. "3. Th body politic is vested with power to make freemen. "4. These freemen have power to choose annually a Governor, Deputy-Governor, Assistants, and their select representatives or Deputies. "5. This government hath also to set up all sorts of officers, as well superior as inferior, and point out their power and places. "6. The Governor, Deputy-Governor, Assistants, and select representatives or Deputies, have full power and authority, both legislative and executive, for the government of all the people here, whether inhabitants or strangers, both concerning ecclesiastics and in civils, without appeal, excepting law or laws repugnant to the laws of England. 6 7. The government is privileged by all fitting means. (yea, and, if need be, by force of arms) to defend themselves, both by land and sea, against all such person or persons as shall at any time attempt or enterprise the destruction, invasion, detriment, or annoyance of this plantation, or the inhabitants therein; besides other privileges mentioned in the patent, not here expressed. "8. We conceive any imposition, prejudicial to the country, contrary to any just law of ours not repug nant to the laws of England, to be an infringement of our right. "II. Concerning our Duties of Allegiance to our Sovereign Lord the King. "1. We ought to uphold, and to our power maintain, this place, as of right belonging to our sovereign lord the King, as holden of his Majesty's manor of East Greenwich, and not to subject the same to any foreign prince or potentate whatsoever. "2. We ought to endeavor the preservation of his Majesty's royal person, realms, and dominions, and, so far as lieth in us, to discover and prevent all plots and conspiracies against the same. "3. We ought to seek the peace and prosperity of our King and nation, by a faithful discharge in the governing of this people committed to our care: "(1.) By punishing all such crimes (being breaches of the first or second Table) as are committed against the peace of our sovereign lord the King, his royal crown and dignity. "(2.) In propagating the Gospel, defending and upholding the true Christian or Protestant religion according to the faith given by our Lord Christ in his word; our dread sovereign being styled 'Defender of the Faith.' "The premises considered, it may well stand with the loyalty and obedience of such subjects as are thus privileged by their rightful sovereign (for himself, his heirs, and successors forever), as cause shall require, to plead with their Prince against all such as shall at any time endeavor the violation of their privileges. "We further judge that the warrant and letter from the King's Majesty, for the apprehending of Colonel Whalley and Colonel Goffe, ought to be diligently and faithfully executed by the authority of this country. "And also, that the General Court may do safely to declare that, in case (for the future) any, legally obnoxious, and flying from the civil justice of the state of England, shall come over to these parts, they may not here expect shelter." 1 The establishment of the Royal Council of Foreign Plantations must before this time have been known. Intelligence of the appointment of the Committee for the Settlement of New England must have arrived soon after. The exposition which had been made of the nature of the allegiance acknowledged by Massachusetts to the King qualified the reluctance with which the measure of formally proclaiming him was approached; and at length, by a later Court, fifteen months after Proclamahis accession, it was ordered that he should be tion of the proclaimed in Boston, in the following form, which, after careful consultation, was selected from among several that were proposed. King. 1661. Aug. 7. "Forasmuch as Charles the Second is undoubted King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and all other his Majesty's territories and dominions thereunto belonging, and hath been sometimes since lawfully proclaimed and crowned accordingly, we therefore do, as in duty we Mass. Rec., IV. (ii.) 25, 26. The extradition stipulated in the last two clauses was nothing more than was proper to be conceded by an independent power to any friendly sovereign. A memorial presented to the Court at this session, and preserved in the Massachusetts Archives (CVI. 36), is an index of the agitation and divisions in the public mind. It is signed by thirty-six persons, of whom the Rev. Mr. Wilson, Jeremiah Scottow, Hezekiah Usher, and John Hull are the only ones of special importance. "What supposed gain," say the petitioners, "may be in any plea for independency for government in New England, we cannot in any measure foresee; the damage is obvious." They pray that " "by some worthy person or persons See above, p. 444.- The Council of Foreign Plantations held their first meeting on the 10th of December, 1660. At a meeting, March 4th, 1661, they took up the business of New England. At a meeting, April 1st, they directed that orders should be sent thither to proclaim the King. (Papers in the State-Paper Office.) are bound, own and acknowledge him to be our sov ereign Lord and King, and do therefore hereby proclaim and declare his said Majesty Charles the Second to be lawful King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and all other the territories and dominions thereunto belonging."1 Precautions were taken against expressions of exces sive enthusiasm on this occasion, should any be disposed to manifest it. Inasmuch as, at this "kind of solemnities, divers wicked and profane persons are ready to take occa sion to dishonor God, break the laws, and abuse themselves by excessive drinking, debauchery, and profaneness," the Court ordered a strict forbearance from such proceedings, "and, in particular, that no person presume to drink his Majesty's health, which he hath in special forbid." The royal prohibition, here referred to, was constructive; it was expressed only in colonial law. The Court prepared a second "script, gratulatory and lowly," to be sent to the King. It thanked him for his gracious acceptance of their former application. "Mephibosheth," it declared, "how prejudicially soever misrepresented, yet rejoiceth that the King is come in peace to his own house." "Diabolical Venner (not to say whence he came to us) went out from us, because he was not of us. God preserve your Majesty from all emissaries agitated by an infernal spirit, under what appellations soever disguised. Luther sometimes wrote to the Senate of Mulhoysen to beware of the wolf Muncer." And it concluded with praying that the Lord would "make the throne of King Charles the Second both greater and better than the 1 Mass. Rec., IV. (ii.) 30, 31. — Chalmers (Annals, 253) ungraciously, but perhaps not unjustly, suggests, that this language was designedly such that the people of the jurisdiction might consider the whole as an election, recent and provincial. Hull, in his Diary (Archæol. Amer., III 203), briefly describes the ceremonial, which took place the next day after the order, a promptness which allowed little time for preparations to make it magnificent or festive. 2 Mass. Rec., IV. (ii.) 31. |