76: In the subsequent year Parliament exempted New
England from all taxes "until both houses should otherwise
direct;" and, in 1646, all the colonies were exempted from
all talliages except the excise, "provided their productions
should be exported only in English bottoms."]

[Footnote 77: Hutchison.]

These manifestations of mutual kindness were not interrupted by an
ordinance of Parliament, passed in 1643, appointing the earl of
Warwick, governor in chief and lord high admiral of the colonies, with
a council of five peers, and twelve commoners, to assist him; and
empowering him, in conjunction with his associates, to examine the
state of their affairs; to send for papers and persons; to remove
governors and officers, appointing others in their places; and to
assign over to them such part of the powers then granted as he should
think proper. Jealous as were the people of New England of measures
endangering their liberty, they do not appear to have been alarmed at
this extraordinary exercise of power. So true is it that men close
their eyes on encroachments committed by that party to which they are
attached, in the delusive hope that power, in such hands, will always
be wielded against their adversaries, never against themselves.

[Sidenote: Treaty with Acadie.]

This prosperous state of things was still farther improved by a
transaction which is the more worthy of notice as being an additional
evidence of the extent to which the colonies of New England then
exercised the powers of self-government. A treaty of peace and
commerce was entered into between the governor of Massachusetts,
styling himself governor of New England, and Monsieur D'Aulney,
lieutenant general of the King of France in Acadie. This treaty was
laid before the commissioners for the colonies and received their
sanction.

{1646}

[Sidenote: Petition of the non-conformists.]

The rigid adherence of Massachusetts to the principle of withholding
the privilege of a freeman from all who dissented from the majority in
any religious opinion, could not fail to generate perpetual
discontents. A petition was presented to the general court, signed by
several persons highly respectable for their situation and character,
but, not being church members, excluded from the common rights of
society, complaining that the fundamental laws of England were not
acknowledged by the colony; and that they were denied those civil and
religious p