ys Mr. Hildreth, "an Address to the King,
praying forbearance; but they authorized Robert Humphreys, a London
barrister and the legal adviser of the agents, to enter an appearance
and to retain counsel, requesting him 'to leave no stone unturned that
may be of service either to the case itself, or the spinning out of the
time as much as possibly may be.' No less than three letters were
written to Humphreys; money was remitted; but all hopes of defence were
futile. Before the letters arrived in London, a default had already been
recorded. That default could not be got off, and judgment was entered
the next year pronouncing the Charter void."[191]

The manner in which the questions at issue were put to a popular vote
in Massachusetts was unfair and misleading; the epithets applied to the
"Moderate" or loyal party were offensive and unjust; and the statements
of Palfrey, respecting the acts of the King immediately following the
vacation of the Charter, are very disingenuous, not to say untrue.

The King had expressly and repeatedly declared that he would not proceed
to vacate the Charter if they would submit to his decision on the six
grounds mentioned in his first letter to them, June 28, 1662, twenty
years before, as the conditions of continuing the Charter, and which
they had persistently evaded and resisted; that his decision should be
in the form of certain "Regulations" for the future administration of
the Charter, and not the vacation of it. Every reader knows the
difference between a Royal Charter of incorporation and the Royal
instructions issued twenty years afterwards to remedy irregularities and
abuses which had been shown to have crept in, and practised in the local
administration of the Charter. Yet the ruling party in Massachusetts Bay
did not put the question as accepting the King's offers, but as of
vacating the Charter. This was raising a false issue, and an avowed
imputation and contempt of the King. It is true that Dr. Palfrey and
other modern New England historians have said that Charles the Second
had from the beginning intended to abolish the Charter; that the
"vacation of the Charter was a foregone conclusion." In reply to which
it may be said that this is mere assumption, unsupported by facts; that
if Charles the Second had wished or intended to vacate the Charter, he
had the amplest opportunity and reasons to do so, in the zenith of his
popularity and power, when they refused to comply with the co