but the "King's Missive" was now partially
obeyed by the release of all prisoners. As for sending anybody to
England for trial, that was something that no New England government
could ever be made to allow.

Charles's defence of the Quakers was due, neither to liberality
of disposition nor to any sympathy with them, but rather to his
inclinations toward Romanism. Unlike in other respects, Quakers and
Catholics were alike in this, that they were the only sects which the
Protestant world in general agreed in excluding from toleration. Charles
wished to secure toleration for Catholics, and he could not prudently
take steps toward this end without pursuing a policy broad enough to
diminish persecution in other directions, and from these circumstances
the Quakers profited. At times there was something almost like a
political alliance between Quaker and Catholic, as instanced in the
relations between William Penn and Charles's brother, the Duke of York.
[Sidenote: The "King's Missive"] [Sidenote: Why Charles II. interfered
to protect the Quakers]

Besides all this, Charles had good reason to feel that the governments
of New England were assuming too many airs of sovereignty. There were
plenty of people at hand to work upon his mind. The friends of Gorton
and Child and Vassall were loud with their complaints. Samuel Maverick
swore that the people of New England were all rebels, and he could prove
it. The king was assured that the Confederacy was "a war combination,
made by the four colonies when they had a design to throw off their
dependence on England, and for that purpose." The enemies of the New
England people, while dilating upon the rebellious disposition of
Massachusetts, could also remind the king that for several years that
colony had been coining and circulating shillings and sixpences with the
name "Massachusetts" and a tree on one side, and the name "New England"
with the date on the other. There was no recognition of England upon
this coinage, which was begun in 1652 and kept up for more than thirty
years. Such pieces of money used to be called "pine-tree shillings";
but, so far as looks go, the tree might be anything, and an adroit
friend of New England once gravely assured the king that it was meant
for the royal oak in which his majesty hid himself after the battle of
Worcester!

Against the colony of New Haven the king had a special grudge. Two of
the regicide judges, who had sat in the tribunal which conde