never was
the humblest inhabitant denied the right of petition to the local
Legislature on any subject, or against any governmental acts, or the
right of appeal to the Imperial Government or Parliament on the subject
of any alleged grievance. The very suspicion and allegation that the
Canadian Government did counteract, by influences and secret
representations, the statements of complaining parties to England,
roused public indignation as arbitrary and unconstitutional. Even the
insurrection which took place in both Upper and Lower Canada in 1837 and
1838 was professedly against alleged partiality and injustice by the
_local_ Government, as an obstruction to more liberal policy believed to
be desired by the Imperial Government.

But here, in Massachusetts, a colony chartered as a Company to
distribute and settle public lands and carry on trade, in less than
twenty years assumes the powers of a sovereign Commonwealth, denies to
five-sixths of the population the freedom of citizenship, and limits it
to the members of one Church, and denies Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and
worship to all who will not come to the one Church, punishes petitioners
to itself for civil and religious freedom from those who were deprived
of it, and punishes as "treason" their appeal for redress to the English
Parliament. Though, for the present, this unprecedented and unparalleled
local despotism was sustained by the ingenious representations of Mr.
Winslow and the power of Cromwell; yet in the course of four years the
surrender of its Charter was ordered by the regicide councillors of the
Commonwealth, as it had been ordered by the beheaded King Charles and
his Privy Council thirteen years before. In the meantime tragical
events in England diverted attention from the colonies. The King was
made prisoner, then put to death; the Monarchy was abolished, as well as
the House of Lords; and the Long Parliament became indeed Cromwell's
"pocket" instrument.

It was manifest that the government of Massachusetts Bay as a colony was
impossible, with the pretensions which it had set up, declaring all
appeals to England to be "treason," and punishing complainants as
"conspirators" and "traitors." The appointment by Parliament in 1643 of
a Governor-General and Commissioners had produced no effect in
Massachusetts Bay Colony; pretensions to supremacy and persecution were
as rife as ever there. Dr. Child and his friends were punished for even
asking for the ad