, merely for the moderation of their sentiments, were exposed to
such severe treatment, it was not to be expected that others should
escape unpunished. The very first colony had hardly set its foot in
America, when, discovering that some amongst them were false brethren,
and ventured to make use of the Common Prayer, they found means to make
the country so uneasy to them, that they were glad to fly back to
England. As soon as they began to think of making laws, I find no less
than five about matters of religion; all contrived, and not only
contrived, but executed in some respects with a rigour that the
persecution which drove the Puritans out of England, might be considered
lenity and indulgence in the comparison. For, in the first of these
laws, they deprive every man who does not communicate with their
Established Church, of the right to his freedom, or a vote in the
election of their magistrates. In the second, they sentence to
banishment any who should oppose the fourth commandment, or deny the
validity of infant baptism, or the authority of the magistrates. In the
third, they condemn Quakers to banishment, and make it capital for them
to return; and not stopping at the offenders, they lay heavy fines upon
all who should bring them into the province, or even harbour them for an
hour. In the fourth, they provide banishment, and death in case of
return, for Jesuits and Popish priests of every denomination. In the
fifth, they decree death to any who shall worship images. After they had
provided such a complete code of persecution, they were not long without
opportunities of reading bloody lectures upon it." "In short, this
people, who in England could not bear to be chastised with rods, had no
sooner got free from their fetters than they scourged their
fellow-refugees with scorpions; though the absurdity as well as
injustice of such proceeding in them might stare them in the
face!"[108]

Mr. Palfrey observes, that "the death of the Protector is not so much as
referred to in the public records of Massachusetts." If this silence
even as to the fact of Cromwell's death was intended to disclaim having
had any connection or sympathy with the Protector, it was a deception;
if it was intended as preparatory to renouncing the worship of the
setting sun of Cromwell, and worshipping the rising sun of Charles the
Second, it was indeed characteristic of their siding with the stronger
party, if they could thereby advance their own