nt on his Majesty's subjects that live under his obedience, his
Majesty doth not understand that you have any such privileges.

"Concerning ecclesiastical privileges, we suppose you mean sacraments,
baptisms, etc. You say we have commended the word of the Lord for our
rule therein, referring us to the perusal of the printed law, page 25.
We have perused that law, and find that that law doth cut off those
privileges which his Majesty will have, and see that the rest of his
subjects have."[151]

I now resume the narrative of questions as affecting the authority of
the Crown and the subjection of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. That
colony was the most populous and wealthy of all the New England
colonies. Its principal founders were men of wealth and education; the
twelve years' tyranny of Charles the First and Laud, during the
suspension of Parliament, caused a flow of more than twenty thousand
emigrants to Massachusetts Bay, with a wealth exceeding half a million
sterling, and among them not less than seventy silenced clergymen.
During the subsequent twenty years of the civil war and Commonwealth in
England, the rulers of that colony actively sided with the latter, and
by the favour and connivance of Cromwell evaded the Navigation Law
passed by the Parliament, and enriched themselves greatly at the expense
of the other British colonies in America, and in violation of the law of
Parliament. In the meantime, being the stronger party, and knowing that
they were the favourites of Cromwell, they assumed, on diverse grounds,
possession of lands, south, east, north, and west, within the limits of
the neighbouring colonies, and made their might right, by force of arms,
when resisted; and denied the citizenship of freemen to all except
actual members of the Congregational Churches, and punished Dissenters
with fine, imprisonment, banishment, and death itself in many instances.

On the restoration of Charles the Second to the throne of his ancestors,
it was natural that the various oppressed and injured parties, whether
of colonies or individuals, should lay their grievances before their
Sovereign and appeal to his protection; and it was not less the duty of
the Sovereign to listen to their complaints, to inquire into them, and
to redress them if well founded. This the King, under the guidance of
his Puritan Councillors, proceeded to do in the most conciliatory and
least offensive way. Though the rulers of Massachusetts Bay did not