ad become weary of
banishing heretics; the soul of the younger Winthrop [who withdrew from
the intolerance of the Massachusetts Puritans, and was elected Governor
of Connecticut] was incapable of harbouring a thought of intolerant
cruelty; but the rugged Dudley was not mellowed by old age."[49]

The letter addressed to Higginson and Skelton expressed a hope that the
report made, in England as to their language and proceedings were "but
shadows," but at the same time apprised them of their duty to vindicate
their innocency or acknowledge and reform their misdeeds, declaring the
favour of the Government to their Plantation, and their duty and
determination not to abuse the confidence which the State had reposed
in them. This letter is given entire in a note.[50]

Nothing can be more clear, from the letters addressed by the Company
both to Endicot and the ministers Higginson and Skelton, that
renunciation of the worship of the Church of England was at variance
with the intentions and profession of all parties in granting and
receiving the Royal Charter, and that the only defence set up in England
of Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton was a positive denial that they had
done so. Dudley himself, Deputy Governor, who went to Massachusetts Bay
in the same fleet of eleven ships with Governor Winthrop, wrote to his
patroness, the Countess of Lincoln, several months after his arrival,
and in his letter, dated March 12, 1630, explicitly denies the existence
of any such changes in their worship as had been alleged; that they had
become "Brownists [that is, Congregationalists] in religion," etc., and
declaring all such allegations to be "false and scandalous reports;"
appealing to their friends in England to "not easily believe that we are
so soon turned from the profession we so long have made at home in our
native land;" declaring that he knew "no one person who came over with
us last year to be altered in judgment or affection, either in
ecclesiastical or civil respects, since our coming here;" acknowledging
the obligations of himself and friends to the King for the royal
kindness to them, and praying his friends in England to "give no credit
to such malicious aspersions, but be more ready to answer for us than we
hear they have been." Dudley's own words are given in note.[51] The only
escape from the admission of Dudley's statements being utterly untrue is
resort to a quibble which is inconsistent with candour and
honesty--namely,