s they had embarked as settlers in
New England? To come to New England as Churchmen, and then abolish the
worship of the Church and set up a new form of worship, without even
consulting his employers, was what was done by Endicot; and to come as
Churchmen to settle in New England, and then to be banished from it for
being Churchmen, was what was done to the Browns by Endicot.

This act of despotism and persecution--apart from its relations to the
King, and the Company chartered by him--is the more reprehensible from
the manner of its execution and the circumstances connected with it.

It appears from the foregoing statements and authorities, that the
Browns were not only gentlemen of the highest respectability, Puritan
Churchmen, and friends of the colonial enterprise, but that when Endicot
resolved upon founding a new Church and worship, they did not interfere
with him; they did not interrupt, by objection or discussion, his
proceedings around the well-pump of Salem in organizing a new Church and
in heretofore professing clergymen of the Church of England, and with
its vows upon them, and coming as chaplains of a Church of England
Corporation, submitting to a new ordination in order to exercise
ecclesiastical functions. The Browns and their friends seem to have been
silent spectators of these proceedings--doubtless with feelings of
astonishment if not of grief--but determined to worship in their
families and on the Sabbath in their old way. But in this they were
interrupted, and haled before the new Governor, Endicot, to answer for
their not coming to his worship and abandoning that which they and their
fathers, and Endicot himself, had practised; were called "Separatists,"
for not acting as such in regard to their old way of worship; and were
treated as "seditious and mutinous," for justifying their fidelity to
the old worship before the new "Star Chamber" tribunal of Endicot. The
early New England ecclesiastical historian above quoted says: "The
magistrates, or rather Endicot, _sent to demand a reason_[39] for their
separation. They _answered_ that as they were of the Church established
by law in their native country, it was highly proper they should worship
God as the Government required from whom they had received their
Charter. Surely they might be allowed that liberty of conscience which
all conceived to be reasonable when they were on the other side of the
water." But their arguments were called "seditious and m