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were, at the same time, the objects of the members of
the Plymouth company, distinctly avowed in their public acts.
1
Now was the season of greatest peril to the rising liberties of
New England.
The king and council already feared the consequences that might come from till unbridled spirits of the
Americans; his dislike was notorious;
2 and at the
Trinity term in the
Court of King's Bench, a
quo warranto was brought against the company of the Massachusetts Bay.
At the ensuing
Michaelmas, several of its members, who resided in
England, made their appearance, and judgment was pronounced against them individually; the rest of the patentees stood outlawed, but no judgment was entered up against them.
3 The unexpected death of
Mason,
who, as the proprietary of
New Hampshire, had been the chief mover of all the aggressions on the rights of the adjoining colony, suspended the hostile movements,
4 which
Gorges had too much honesty and too little intrigue to renew.
5
The severe censures in the
Star Chamber, the great-
ness of the fines which avarice rivaled bigotry in imposing, the rigorous proceedings with regard to ceremonies, the suspending and silencing of multitudes of ministers, still continued; and men were ‘enforced by heaps to desert their native country.
Nothing but the wide ocean, and the savage deserts of
America, could hide and shelter them from the fury of the bishops.’
6 The pillory had become the bloody scene of human
