George Bancroft, History of the Colonization of the United States, Vol. 1, 17th edition.

[2] the three great principles of congregationalism; a

Chap. IX.} 1630.

right faith attended by a true religious experience as the requisite qualifications for membership; the equality of all believers, including the officers of the church; the equality of the several churches, free from the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical court or bishop, free from the jurisdiction of one church over another, free from the collective authority of them all.

Meantime the civil government was exercised with mildness and impartiality, yet with determined vigor. Justices of the peace were commissioned with the powers of those in England. On the seventh of Sep. tember, names were given to Dorchester, Watertown, and Boston, which thus began their career as towns under sanction of law. Quotas were settled and money levied. The interloper who dared to ‘confront’ the public authority was sent to England; or enjoined to depart out of the limits of the patent.

As the year for which Winthrop and the assistants had been chosen was coming to an end, on the nineteenth of October, a general court, the first in America, was held at Boston. Of members of the company, less than twenty had come over. One hundred and eight inhabitants, some of whom were old planters, were now, at their desire, admitted to be freemen. The former officers of government were continued: as a rule for the future, ‘it was propounded to the people, and assented unto by the erection of hands, that the freemen should have power to choose assistants, when any were to be chosen; the assistants to choose from among themselves the governor and his deputy.’ The rule implied a strong reluctance to leave out of the board any person once elected magistrate; and perhaps also revealed a natural anxiety respecting the effect of the large creation of