f the "patriotic party") did not take
up arms of rebellion against the mother country. The one was _disunion_
in the colony--"the ancient unanimity was broken in upon." It has been
seen that a majority of the "Upper branch" of even this denominational
Government, and a large minority of the assembly of deputies, were in
favour of submitting to the conditions which the King had twenty years
before prescribed as the terms of continuing the Charter. If the
defection from disloyalty was so great within the limits of the
denomination, it is natural to infer that it must have been universal
among the four-fifths of the male population who were denied the rights
and privileges of "freemen," yet subject to all the burdens of the
State. Deprived also of all freedom of the press, and punished by fine
and imprisonment if, even in petitions to the local Legislature for
redress of grievances, they complained of the acts of local legislation
or government, they could only look to the mother country for
deliverance from local oppression, for liberty of worship and freedom of
citizens. The "ministers" had lost their ascendency even within the
enfranchised circle of their own established churches, while the great
body of the disfranchised Nonconformists could only regard them as had
the Nonconformists in England regarded Bancroft and Laud. They could
assume high prerogatives, arrogate to themselves divine favour and
protection, threaten divine judgments on their adversaries, boast of
courage and power; but they knew that in a trial of strength on the
battlefield their strength would prove weakness, and that they would be
swept from power, and perhaps proscribed and oppressed by the very
victims of their intolerance. The "breaking in upon ancient unanimity"
was but the declining power of a disloyal Church and State Government
of one denomination. A second cause hinted at by Dr. Palfrey why the
rulers of Massachusetts Bay did not resort to arms at this time was,
that "_the rest of New England was more or less inclined to the adverse
interest_." They could command no rallying watchword to combine the
other New England colonies against the King, such as they were enabled
to employ the following century to combine all the American colonies.
"The rest of New England" had found that in the King and Council was
their only effectual protection against the aggressions and domination
of the rulers of Massachusetts Bay, who denied all right of appeal