ike paper. The charters gave these people
the right to settle on and own certain lands, to form certain kinds of
government, and to do a variety of things which in England no one could
do but the king and the parliament.

The colonies in New England were given the right to choose their own
governors and make their own laws, and nobody, not even the king, could
stop them from doing this. The king had given them this right, and no
other king could take it away while they kept their charters.

Would you care to be told what took place afterwards? All kings, you
should know, are not alike. Some are very mild and easy, and some are
very harsh and severe. Some are willing for the people to have liberty,
and some are not. The kings who gave the charters to New England were of
the easy kind. But they were followed by kings of the hard kind, who
thought that these people beyond the sea had too much liberty, and who
wished to take away some of it.

Charles II., who gave some of these charters, was one of the easy kings,
and did not trouble himself about the people in the colonies. James II.,
who came after him, was one of the hard kings. He was somewhat of a
tyrant, and wanted to make the laws himself, and to take the right to do
this from the people. After trying to rob the people of England of
their liberties, he thought he would do the same thing with the people
of America. "Those folks across the seas are having too good a time," he
thought. "They have too many rights and privileges, and I must take some
of them away. I will let them know that I am their master."

But they had their charters, which gave them these rights; so the wicked
king thought the first thing for him to do was to take their charters
away from them. Then their rights would be gone, and he could make for
them a new set of laws, and force them to do everything he wished.

What King James did was to send a nobleman named Sir Edmund Andros to
New England to rule as royal governor. He was the agent of the king, and
was to do all that the king ordered. He began by undertaking to rob the
people of their charters. You see, even a tyrant king did not like to go
against the charters, for a charter was a sacred pledge.

Well, the new governor went about ordering the people to give him their
charters. One of the places to which he went was Hartford, Connecticut,
and there he told the officers of the colony that they must deliver up
their charter; the king had sa