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 Aug. 7. from among several that were proposed.

King,

1661.

"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. (i.) 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,

66

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

99

"by some worthy person or persons" an Address may be sent to the King expressing gratitude for his late "gracious answer; "that all endeavors possible may yet be exerted to answer his royal warrant" for the arrest of the Colonels; and that the Court will consider "whether they may not with safety, and ought not in duty, to proclaim his royal Majesty." But the Court was in no such haste.

* 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 sovereign 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 excessive 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 occasion 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.

* Mass. Rec., IV. (ü.) 31.

throne of King David." 1 But the expediency of this second Address was reconsidered, and it appears not to have been sent.

Message from

specting the

Sept. 9.

The complaints of the Quakers had reached the royal ear. Edward Burrough obtained an audience, and presented their case. The careless King, who did not like the annoyance of refusing a request, unless the granting of it would interfere with his ease or his pleasures, allowed a letter to be written to Endicott and the other Governors and officers of the New-England Col- the King reonies, directing "that, if there were any of those Quakers. people called Quakers amongst them, now already condemned to suffer death, or other corporal punishment, or that were imprisoned, and obnoxious to the like condemnation, they were to forbear to proceed any further therein," and should send such persons to England for trial. At Burrough's request, the mandamus, as it has been inaccurately called, was given in charge to Samuel Shattuck, a Quaker of Salem, then in England under a sentence of banishment, with the usual condition of being capitally punished if he should return. As soon as arrangements could with all haste be made, Shattuck sailed for Boston in a vessel provided by some of his fellow-sectaries, and commanded by one of them.

November.

On their arrival, the messenger and the shipmaster presented themselves at the Governor's door, and sent him word that "their business was from the King of England, and that they would deliver their message to none but the Governor himself. Thereupon they were admitted to go in; and the Governor came to them, and commanded Shattuck's hat to be taken off; and, having received the deputation and the mandamus, he laid off his hat; and, ordering Shattuck's hat to be given him again, he looked upon the papers, and then,

1 Mass. Rec., IV. (ii.) 32, 33; Hutch. Coll., 341, 348. All proceed

ings of the kind must have been unpalatable in a high degree.

going out, went to the Deputy-Governor, and bid the King's deputy and the master of the ship follow him; and, having consulted with him about the matter, he returned to the two aforesaid persons, and said, 'We shall obey his Majesty's command.' ” 1 The command, however, produced little effect. The resolution to abstain from further capital punishments had been taken some months before, though the Magistrates perhaps were not indisposed to appeal to the King's injunction rather than avow a change of judgment on their own part. The General Court, not because a royal mandate to them was coercive, but "that they might not in the least offend his Majesty," saw fit to "order and declare that Nov. 27. the execution of the laws in force against Quakers, as such, so far as they respected corporal punishment or death, should be suspended until the Court took further order." The Court did take further order within a year, and laws respecting the corporal punishment of Quakers were revived. And no Quaker prisoners were sent to England for trial. It would have been a violation of one of the most cherished local maxims.

1662. Oct. 8.

A question started at this time as to "the Court's sending a meet person or persons with an Address to his Majesty," divided the opinion of the rulers, and was "referred to the next Court." A special session was called

1 Sewel, 272-274; comp. Bishop, memoranda from the documents in the 344-346.

2 Mass. Rec., IV. (ii.) 34, 59.

Hutchinson says (Hist., I. 201) that this proposal was in consequence of "orders being received from the King that persons should be sent over to make answer." Chalmers (Annals, 253) makes the same statement, and refers to Hutchinson, and to "NewEngland Entries." I have never seen these "orders," nor do I get any light upon them from Chalmers's original

English offices, of which memoranda (composing two folio volumes in manuscript, and extending from 1633 to 1765) I have the use, by the kindness of my friend, Mr. Sparks. When the Court voted to send, they said that it was because of "duly considering the weight of their occasions in England." (Mass. Rec., IV. (ii.) 37.) I am not sure that Hutchinson was not thinking of a later order of the King to send agents. See below, pp. 624, 625.