urrendered. The general court
answered this order by a petition to the commissioners in which they
said, "we dare not question your Lordship's proceedings in requiring
our patent to be sent unto you; we only desire to open our griefs; and
if in any thing we have offended his Majesty or your Lordships, we
humbly prostrate ourselves at the foot stool of supreme authority; we
are sincerely ready to yield all due obedience to both; we are not
conscious that we have offended in any thing, as our government is
according to law; we pray that we may be heard before condemnation,
and that we may be suffered to live in the wilderness." Fortunately
for the colonists, Charles and his commissioners found too much
employment at home, to have leisure for carrying into complete
execution, a system aimed at the subversions of what was most dear to
the hearts of Americans.

To the religious dissensions which distracted Massachusetts, and to
the rigour with which conformity was exacted, is to be attributed the
first settlement of the other colonies of New England. As early as the
year 1634, Roger Williams, a popular preacher at Salem, who had
refused to hold communion with the church at Boston, because its
members refused to make a public declaration of their repentance for
having held communion with the church of England during their
residence in that country, was charged with many exceptionable tenets.
Among several which mark his wild enthusiasm, one is found in total
opposition, to the spirit of the times and to the severity of his
other doctrines. He maintained, that to punish a man for any matter of
conscience is persecution, and that even papists and Arminians are
entitled to freedom of conscience in worship, provided the peace of
civil society be secured. The divines of Massachusetts, in opposition
to this doctrine, contended that they did not persecute men for
conscience, but corrected them for sinning against conscience; and so
they did not persecute, but punish heretics. This unintelligible
sophism not convincing Williams, he was, for this, and for his other
heresies, banished by the magistrates, as a disturber of the peace of
the church, and of the commonwealth.

[Illustration: Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1622

_From the painting by W.L. Williams_

_Here, under Governor Bradford, who directed their destiny for a
precarious quarter of a century, the Pilgrim Fathers strove
desperately to maintain a foothold in America, and