during the three years'
reign of James the Second, their revenge not only in his own
dethronement, but also on his Governor Andros, for the tyranny which he
practised upon them by imprisoning him and his helpers, and by Royal
command sending them as prisoners to England, together with the removal
of the local officers appointed by Andros and the restoration of their
own elected authorities until further instruction from the new King.

There can be no question that the founders of that colony were not only
men of wealth, but men of education, of piety, of the highest
respectability, of great energy, enterprize, and industry, contributing
to the rapid progress of their settlements and increase of their wealth,
and stamping the character of their history; but after their emigration
to Massachusetts Bay, and during the progress of their settlements and
the organization and development of their undertakings, their views
became narrowed to the dimensions of their own Plantation in government
and trade, irrespective of the interests of England, or of the other
neighbour colonies, and their theology and religious spirit was of the
narrowest and most intolerant character. They assumed to be the chosen
Israel of God, subject to no King but Jehovah, above the rulers of the
land, planted there to cast out the heathen, to smite down every dagon
of false worship, whether Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, or
Quaker, and responsible to no other power on earth for either their
legislative or administrative acts. I will not here recapitulate those
acts, so fully stated in preceding pages, and established by evidence of
documents and testimony which cannot be successfully denied. But there
are two features of their pretensions and government which demand
further remark.

I. The first is the character and narrowness of the foundation on which
rested their legislation and government. None but members of the
Congregational Churches were eligible to legislate or fill any office in
the colony, or even to be an elector. A more narrow-minded and
corrupting test of qualification for civil or political office, or for
the elective franchise, can hardly be conceived.[201] However rich a man
might be, and whatever might be his education or social position, if he
were not a member of the Congregational Church he was an "alien in the
Commonwealth" of the Massachusetts Israel, was ineligible for office, or
to be an elector; while his own servant, if