they did or sought
to do the same in New England, they make groundless assumptions,
contrary to the express declarations and policy of the two Charleses and
the whole character and tenor of New England history. The demands of
Charles the Second, and the conditions on which he proposed to continue
the first Charter in 1662, were every one sanctioned and provided for in
the second Royal Charter issued by William and Mary in 1690, and under
which, for seventy years, the Government was milder and more liberal,
the legislation broader, the social state more happy, and the colony
more loyal and prosperous than it had ever been during the fifty-four
years of the first Charter. All this will be proved and illustrated in
the following chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 180: The Massachusetts Court had applied to Cromwell for
permission to use the word "Commonwealth" instead of the word
"Plantation," as expressed in their Charter, but were refused. They
afterwards adopted it of their own accord.]

[Footnote 181: Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. I., Chap.
xiv., pp. 500, 506.

Their attempt to bribe the King was not the less bribery, whether
Cranfield, for his own amusement, or otherwise to test their virtue,
suggested it to them or not. But without any suggestion from Cranfield
they bribed the King's clerks from their fidelity in the Privy Council,
and bribed others "to obtain favour." The whole tenor of Scripture
injunction and morality is against offering as well as taking bribes.
After authorizing the employment of _bribery_ in England to promote
their objects, the Court closed their sittings by appointing "a day for
solemn humiliation throughout the colony, to implore the mercy and
favour of God in respect to their sacred, civil, and temporal concerns,
and more especially those in the hands of their agents abroad."
(Palfrey, Vol. III., B. iii, Chap. ix., pp. 374, 375.)]

[Footnote 182: Palfrey's History of New England, Vol. III., B. iii.,
Chap. ix., pp. 372, 373.

"The agents of the colony, Messrs. Dudley and Richards, upon their
arrival in England, found his Majesty greatly provoked at the neglect of
the colonists not sending before; and in their first letters home they
acquainted the Court with the feelings of the King, and desired to know
whether it was best to hazard all by refusing to comply with his
demands, intimating that they 'seriously intended to submit to the
substance.' At that time they had n