xpatriation, that every man may withdraw from the
land of his birth, and renounce all duty of allegiance with all claim to
protection. This they themselves had done. Remaining in England, they
acknowledged the obligatory force of established laws. Because those
laws were intolerable, they had emigrated to a new world, where they
could organize their government, as many of them originally did, on the
basis of natural rights and of perfect independence.

As the establishment of a commission with discretionary powers was not
specially sanctioned by their charter, they resolved to resist the
orders of the king and nullify his commission. While the fleet sent from
England was engaged in reducing New York, Massachusetts, on September
10th, 1664, published an order prohibiting complaints to the
commissioners, and at the same time issued a remonstrance, not against
deeds of tyranny, but the menace of tyranny, not against actual wrong,
but against the principle of wrong. On the twenty-fifth of October it
thus addressed a letter to King Charles II.:

"DREAD SOVEREIGN:--The first undertakers of this plantation did obtain a
patent, wherein is granted full and absolute power of governing all the
people of this place, by men chosen from among themselves, and
according to such laws as they should see meet to establish. A royal
donation, under the great seal, is the greatest security that may be had
in human affairs. Under the encouragement and security of the royal
charter, this people did, at their own charges, transport themselves,
their wives and families, over the ocean, purchase the land of the
natives, and plant this colony, with great labor, hazards, cost, and
difficulties; for a long time wrestling with the wants of a wilderness
and the burdens of a new plantation; having also now above thirty years
enjoyed the privilege of GOVERNMENT WITH THEMSELVES, as their undoubted
right in the sight of God and man. To be governed by rulers of our own
choosing and laws of our own, is the fundamental privilege of
our patent.

"A commission under the great seal, within four persons (one of them our
professed enemy) are impowered to receive and determine all complaints
and appeals according to their discretion, subjects us to the arbitrary
power of strangers, and will end in the subversion of our all.

"If these things go on, your subjects here will either be forced to seek
new dwellings or sink under intolerable burdens. The vigor of all