ill be able
to judge of the agreement in their _professions_ and _statements_ in
their addresses to Parliament and Cromwell and to King Charles the
Second ten years afterwards. In their addresses to Parliament and
Cromwell they professed their readiness to _fall_ as well as rise with
the cause of the Parliament; but when that _fell_, they repudiated all
connection with it.

In the year 1651, and during the very Session of Parliament to which the
General Court addressed its petition and narrated its sacrifices and
doings in the cause of the Parliament, the latter passed the famous
Navigation Act, which was re-enacted and improved ten years afterwards,
under Charles the Second, and which became the primary pretext of the
American Revolution. The Commonwealth was at this time at war with the
Dutch republic, which had almost destroyed and absorbed the shipping
trade of England. Admiral Blake was just commencing that series of naval
victories which have immortalized his name, and placed England from that
time to this at the head of the naval powers of the world. Sir Henry
Vane, as the Minister of the Navy, devised and carried through
Parliament the famous Navigation Act--an Act which the colony of
Massachusetts, by the connivance of Cromwell (who now identified himself
with that colony), regularly evaded, at the expense of the American
colonies and the English revenue.[98] Mr. Palfrey says:

"The people of Massachusetts might well be satisfied with their
condition and prospects. Everything was prospering with them. They had
established comfortable homes, which they felt strong enough to defend
against any power but the power of the Mother Country; and that was
friendly. They had always the good-will of Cromwell. In relation _to
them_, he allowed the Navigation Law, _which pressed on the Southern
colonies, to became_ A DEAD LETTER, and they received the commodities of
all nations free of duty, and sent their ships to all the ports of
continental Europe."[99]

But that in which the ruling spirits of the Massachusetts General
Court--apart from their ceaseless endeavours to monopolise trade and
extend territory--seemed to revel most was in searching out and
punishing _dissent_ from the Congregational Establishment, and, at
times, with the individual liberty of citizens in sumptuary matters. No
Laud ever equalled them in this, or excelled them in enforcing
uniformity, not only of doctrine, but of opinions and practice in the