ntil the next General Court, that all persons may
have opportunity to consider what was necessary to be done, in order to
know his Majesty's pleasure therein.'" (Hutchinson's History of
Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I., pp. 221, 222.)]

[Footnote 126: So dissatisfied were these Congregational "freemen" with
the conditions which were intended to put an end to their persecutions
of their brethren and their disloyal practices, that they denounced
their old friends and representatives to England, Messrs. Bradstreet and
Norton, for those conditions which they could not prevent, and upon
which they might well be thankful to preserve the Charter and obtain
pardon for their past offences. Their historian says: "The agents met
with the fate of most agents ever since. The favours they obtained were
supposed to be no more than might well have been expected, and their
merits were soon forgot; the evils which they had it not in their power
to prevent, were attributed to their neglect or unnecessary concessions.
Mr. Bradstreet was a man of more phlegm and not so sensibly touched, but
Mr. Norton was so affected that he grew melancholy; and died suddenly
soon after his return (April 5, 1633)." (Hutchinson's History of
Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I., p. 223.)

In a note the historian quotes the remark of Mr. Norton to the
Massachusetts Court, that "if they complied not with the King's letter,
the blood that should be spilt would lie at their door."

"Dr. Mather says upon this occasion: 'Such has been the jealous
disposition of our New Englanders about their dearly bought privileges,
and such also has been the various interpretations of the people about
the extent of their privileges, that of all the agents sent over to the
Court of England for now forty years together, I know of not one who did
not, at his return, meet with some forward entertainment among his
countrymen.'" (_Ib._, p. 222.)]

[Footnote 127: Mr. Hildreth gives the following account of this mission
and its results upon the state of society in Massachusetts Bay Colony
and its agents to England:

"The Massachusetts' agents presently returned, bearers of a royal
letter, in which the King recognized the Charter and promised oblivion
of past offences. But he demanded the repeal of all laws inconsistent
with his due authority; an oath of allegiance to the royal person, as
formerly in use, but dropped since the commencement of the late civil
war; the administration of justice in his