Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877, with a genealogical register

[101] are at a great loss to know what is law, and what not. Only one law they are sensible of, which doth prohibit all Town-meetings, excepting on a certain day once a year: whereas the inhabitants have occasion to meet once a month, sometimes every week, for relief of the poor, or other Town-affairs. But it is easy to penetrate into the design of this law, which was (no question) to keep them in every town from complaining to England of the oppression they are under. And as laws have been established so moneys have been raised by the government in a most illegal and arbitrary way, without any consent of the people. “¹ ‘Several gentlemen in the country were imprisoned and bound to their good behavior, upon mere suspicion that they did encourage their neighbors not to comply with these arbitrary proceedings, and that so they might be sure to effect their pernicious designs, they have caused juries to be picked of men who are not of the vicinity, and some of them mere strangers in the country and no freeholders, which actings are highly illegal. One of the former magistrates was committed to prison without any crimes laid to his charge, and there kept half a year without any fault; and though he petitioned for a Habeas Corpus, it was denied him. Also inferior officers have extorted what fees they please to demand, contrary to all rules of reason and justice. They make poor widows and fatherless pay 50s. for the probate of a will, which under the former easy government would not have been a tenth part so much. Six persons, who had been illegally imprisoned, were forced to give the officers 117l., whereas upon computation they found that here in England their fees would not have amounted to 10l. in all. And yet these things (though bad enough) are but a very small part of the misery which that poor people have been groaning under, since they have been governed by a despotic and absolute power. For their new masters tell them that, their Charter being gone, their title to their lands and estates is gone therewith, and that all is the King's; and that they represent the King; and that therefore all persons must take patents from them, and give what they see meet to impose, that so they may enjoy the houses which their own hands have built, and the lands which, at vast charges in subduing a wilderness, they have for many years had a rightful possession of as ever any people in the world had or can have.’²” These were the miserable effects of New England's being deprived of their Charters,