Chap. X.} |
1660 |
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of the industrious classes; the Puritans, rallying
upon those classes, planted in their hearts the undying principles of democratic liberty.
The golden age of Puritanism was passing away.
Time was silently softening its asperities, and the revolutions of England prepared an era in its fortunes.
Massachusetts never acknowledged Richard Cromwell; it read clearly in the aspect of parties the impending restoration.
The protector had left the benefits of self-government and the freedom of commerce to New England and to Virginia; and Maryland, by the act of her inhabitants, was just beginning to share in the same advantages.
Would the dynasty of the Stuarts deal benevolently with the colonies?
Would it imitate the magnanimity of Cromwell, and suffer the staple of the south still to seek its market freely throughout the world?
Could the returning monarch forgive the friends of the Puritans in England?
Would he show favor to the institutions that the outcasts had reared beyond the Atlantic?
end of Vol.
I
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1859.
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