Volume I Part 15 (1/2)
”Most gracious and dread Sovereign:
”May it please your Majesty--In the day wherein you happily say you know you are King over your British Israel, to cast a favourable eye upon your poore Mephiboseth now, and by reason of lameness in respect of distance, not until now appearing in your presence, we mean upon New England, kneeling with the rest of your subjects before your Majesty as her restored King. We forget not our ineptness as to those approaches; we at present owne such impotence as renders us unable to excuse our impotency of speaking unto our Lord the King; yet contemplating such a King, who hath also seen adversity, that he knoweth the hearts of exiles, who himself hath been an exile, the aspect of Majesty extraordinarily influenced animateth exanimated outcasts, yet outcasts as we hope for the truth, to make this address unto our Prince, hoping to find grace in your sight. We present this script, the transcript of our loyall hearts, wherein we crave leave to supplicate your Majesty for your gracious protection of us in the continuance both of our civill and religious liberties (according to the grantees known, and of suing for the patent) conferred on this Plantation by your royal father. This, viz., our libertie to walk in the faith of the gospell, was the cause of our transporting ourselves, with our wives, little ones, and our substances, from that over the Atlantick ocean, into the vast wilderness, choosing rather the pure Scripture wors.h.i.+p with a good conscience in this remote wilderness among the heathen, than the pleasures of England with submission to _the impositions_ of the _then_ so disposed and so far _prevailing hierarchy_, which we could not do without an evil conscience.” ”Our witness is in heaven that we left not our native country upon any dissatisfaction as to the const.i.tution of the civil state. Our lot after the good old nonconformists hath been only to _act a pa.s.sive part throughout these late vicissitudes_ and successive turnings of States. Our separation from our brethren in this desert hath been and is a sufficient bringing to mind the afflictions of Joseph. But providentiall exemption of us hereby from the late warres and temptations of _either party_ we account as a favour from G.o.d; the former cloathes us with sackcloth, the latter with innocency.
(Signed) ”JOHN ENDICOT, _Governor_.
”In the name and by order of the _General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts_.”]
[Footnote 117: It is known that the ”_old_ nonconformists” did not fight against the king, denounced his execution, suffered for their ”nonconformity” to Cromwell's despotism, and were among the most active restorers of Charles the Second.]
[Footnote 118: See above, in a previous page.]
[Footnote 119: Letter from Charles II. to Governor Endicot:
”CHARLES R.
”Trusty and well beloved--Wee greet you well. It having pleased Almighty G.o.d, after long trialls both of us and our people, to touch their hearts at last with a just sense of our right, and by their a.s.sistance to restore us, peaceably and without blood, to the exercise of our legall authority for the good and welfare of the nations committed to our charge, we have made it our care to settle our lately distracted kingdom at home, and to extend our thoughts to increase the trade and advantages of our colonies and plantations abroad, amongst which as wee consider New England to be one of the chiefest, having enjoyed and grown up in a long and orderly establishment, so wee shall not be behind any of our royal predecessors in a just encouragement and protection of all our loving subjects there, whose application unto us, since our late happy restoration, hath been very acceptable, and shall not want its due remembrance upon all seasonable occasions; neither shall wee forget to make you and all our good people in those parts equal partakers of those promises of liberty and moderation to tender consciences expressed in our gracious declarations; which, though some persons in this kingdom, of desperate, disloyal, and unchristian principles, have lately abused to the public disturbance and their own destruction, yet wee are confident our good subjects in New England will make a right use of it, to the glory of G.o.d, their own spiritual comfort and edification. And so wee bid you farewell. Given at our Court of Whitehall, the 15th day of February, 1660 (1661, new style), in the thirteenth year of our reigne.
(Signed) ”WILL. MORRICE.”]
[Footnote 120: The following are extracts from the reply of the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay to the foregoing letter of Charles the Second:
”ILl.u.s.tRIOUS SIR,--
”That majestie and benignitie both sate upon the throne whereunto your outcasts made their former addresse; witness this second eucharistical approach unto the best of kings, who to other t.i.tles of royaltie common to him with other G.o.ds amongst men, delighteth herein more particularily to conforme himselfe to the G.o.d of G.o.ds, in that he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath he hid his face from him, but when he heard he cried.
”Our pet.i.tion was the representation of exiles' necessities; this script, congratulatory and lowly, is the reflection of the gracious rayes of Christian majestie. There we besought your favour by presenting to a compa.s.sionate eye that bottle full of tears shed by us in this Tes.h.i.+mon: here we acknowledge the efficacie of regal influence to qualify these salt waters. The mission of ours was accompanied with these Churches sitting in sackcloth; the reception of yours was as the holding forth the scepter of life. The truth is, such were the impressions upon our spirits when we received an answer of peace from our gracious Sovereigne as transcends the facultie of an eremitical scribe. Such, as though our expressions of them neede pardon, yet the suppression of them seemeth unpardonable.”
The conclusion of their address was as follows:
”ROYAL SIR,--
”Your just t.i.tle to the Crown enthronizeth you in our consciences, your graciousness in our affections: That inspireth us unto Duty, this naturalizeth unto Loyalty: Thence we call you Lord; hence a Savior.
Mephibosheth, how prejudicially soever misrepresented, yet rejoiceth that the King is come in Peace to his own house. Now the Lord hath dealt well with our Lord the King. May New England, under your Royal Protection, be permitted still to sing the Lord's song in this strange Land. It shall be no grief of Heart for the Blessing of a people ready to perish, daily to come upon your Majesty, the blessings of your poor people, who (not here to alledge the innocency of our cause, touching which let us live no longer than we subject ourselves to an orderly trial thereof), though in the particulars of subscriptions and conformity, supposed to be under the hallucinations of weak Brethren, yet crave leave with all humility to say whether the voluntary quitting of our native and dear country be not sufficient to expiate so innocent a mistake (if a mistake) let G.o.d Almightie, your Majesty, and all good men judge.
”Now, he in whose hands the times and trials of the children of men are, who hath made your Majesty remarkably parallel to the most eminent of kings, both for s.p.a.ce and kind of your troubles, so that vere day cannot be excepted, wherein they drove him from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, 'Go, serve other G.o.ds; make you also (which is the crown of all), more and more like unto him, in being a man after G.o.d's own heart, to do whatsoever he will.' Yea, as the Lord was with David, so let him be with your most excellent Majesty, and make the Throne of King Charles the Second both greater and better than the Throne of King David, or than the Throne of any of your Royal Progenitors. So shall always pray,
”Great Sir,
”Your Majesty's most humble and loyal subjects.
”JOHN ENDICOT, _Governor_.”
(Hutchinson's Collection of Original Papers, etc., pp. 341, 342.
Ma.s.sachusetts Records, August 7, 1661.)]
[Footnote 121: The Government of New England received a letter from the King, signifying his pleasure that there should be no further prosecution of the Quakers who were condemned to suffer death or other corporal punishment, or who were imprisoned or obnoxious to such condemnation; but that they be forthwith sent over to England for trial.
The Ma.s.sachusetts General Court, after due consideration of the King's letter, proceeded to declare that the necessity of preserving religion, order, and peace had induced the enactment of laws against the Quakers, etc., and concluded by saying, ”All this, notwithstanding their restless spirits, have moved some of them to return, and others to fill the royal ear of our Sovereign Lord the King with complaints against us, and have, by their unwearied solicitations, in our absence, so far prevailed as to obtain a letter from his Majesty to forbear their corporal punishment or death; although we hope and doubt not but that if his Majesty were rightly informed, he would be far from giving them such favour, or weakening his authority here, so long and orderly settled: Yet that we may not in the least offend his Majesty, this Court doth hereby order and declare that the execution of the laws in force against Quakers as such, so far as they respect corporal punishment or death, be suspended until this Court take further order.” Upon this order of the Court twenty-eight Quakers were released from prison and conducted out of the jurisdiction of Ma.s.sachusetts. (Holmes' Annals, Vol. I., pp. 318, 319.)]
[Footnote 122: ”Upon the Restoration, not only Episcopalians, but Baptists, Quakers, etc., preferred complaints against the colony; and although, by the interest of the Earl of Manchester and Lord Say, their old friends, and Secretary Morrice, all Puritans, King Charles continued their Charter, yet he required a toleration in religion, and an alteration in some civil matters, neither of which were fully complied with.” (Hutchinson's History of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Vol. II., p. 3.)]
[Footnote 123: ”In the Earl of Manchester and Lord Say; in Annesley, created Earl of Anglesea; in Denzil Hollis, now Lord Hollis; and in Ashley Cooper, now Lord Ashley, the expectant cavaliers saw their old enemies raised to the place of honour. Manchester had not taken any part in public affairs since the pa.s.sing of the self-denying ordinances. He was still a Presbyterian, but had favoured the return of the King. Lord Say, also, had long since withdrawn from public life, and though of a less pliant temper than Manchester, his new friends had no reason to doubt his steady adherence to the new order of things. Annesley was an expert lawyer. Hollis had been the leader of the Presbyterians in the Long Parliament, until the crisis which turned the scale in favour of the Independents.