Leverett, and seven other Deputies recording their votes
against the sentence." (_Ibid._ 252; compare 276, 289.)

But these reputed fathers of civil and religious liberty not only held
inquisition over the religious writings and teachings of magistrates and
ministers, and the independence of their Congregational Churches, but
even over the property, the income, and the apparel of individuals; for
in this same year, 1651, they passed a Sumptuary Act. Mr. Holmes justly
remarks: "This sumptuary law, for the matter and style, is a curiosity."
The Court, lamenting the inefficacy of former "Declarations and Orders
against excess of apparel, both of men and women," proceed to observe:
"We cannot but to our grief take notice, that intolerable excess and
bravery hath crept in upon us, and especially among people of mean
condition, to the dishonour of God, the scandal of our profession, the
consumption of estates, and altogether unsuitable to our poverty. The
Court proceed to order, that no person whose visible estate should not
exceed the true and indifferent sum of L200, shall wear any gold or
silver lace, or gold and silver buttons, or have any lace above two
shillings per yard, or silk hoods or scarves, on the penalty of ten
shillings for every such offence." The select men of every town were
required to take notice of the apparel of any of the inhabitants, and to
assess such persons as "they shall judge to exceed their ranks and
abilities, in the costliness or fashion of their apparel in any respect,
especially in wearing of ribbands and great boots," at L200 estates,
according to the proportion which some men used to pay to whom such
apparel is suitable and allowed. An exception, however, is made in
favour of public officers and their families, and of those "whose
education and employment have been above the ordinary degree, or whose
estates have been considerable, though now decayed."[101]

It will be recollected by the reader that in 1644 the Massachusetts Bay
Court passed an act of banishment, etc., against Baptists; that in 1643
it put to "the rout" the Presbyterians, who made a move for the
toleration of their worship; that in 1646, when the Presbyterians and
some Episcopalians petitioned the local Court for liberty of worship,
and in the event of refusal expressed their determination to appeal to
the English Parliament, they were punished with fines and imprisonment,
and their papers were seized. The above acts of cen