All that could be resolved on was to retain Robert Humphrys of the Middle Temple to interpose such delays as the law permitted; but no attempt was made at defence upon the merits of their cause, probably because all knew well that no such defence was possible.
Meanwhile, for technical reasons, the quo warranto had been abandoned, and a writ of scire facias had been issued out of chancery. On June 18, 1684, the lord keeper ordered the defendant to appear and plead on the first day of the next Michaelmas Term. The time allowed was too short for an answer from America, and judgment was entered by default. [Footnote: Decree entered June 21, 1684; confirmed, Oct. 23. Palfrey, iii. 393, note.] The decree was arbitrary, but no effort was made to obtain relief. The story, however, is best told by Humphrys himself:—
“It is matter of astonishment to me, to think of the returnes I haue had from you in the affaire of your charter; that a prudent people should think soe little, in a thing of the greatest moment to them.
“Which charge I humbly justify in the following particulars, and yet at the same time confess that all you could haue done would but haue gained more time, and spent more money, since the breaches assigned against you, were as obvious as vnanswerable, soe as all the service your councill and friends could haue done you here, would haue onely served to deplore, not prevent the inevitable loss.
“When I sent you the lord keeper’s order of the 18th of June 1684 requireing your appeareing peromptorily the first day of Michaelmas Tearme then next, and pleading to yssue ... you may remember I sent with it such drafts of lettres of attorney, to pass vnder your comon seale as were essentially necessary to empower and justify such appearance, and pleading for you here, which you could not imagine but that you must haue had due time to returne them in, noe law compelling impossibilities.
“When the first day of that Michaelmas Tearme came, and your lettres of attorney neither were, nor indeed could be return’d ... I applyd by councill to the Court of Chancery to enlarge that time urgeing the impossibility of hauing a returne from you in the time allotted.... But it is true my lord keeper cutt the ground from under us which wee stood upon, by telling us the order of the 18th of June was a surprize upon his lordship and that he ought not to haue granted it, for that every corporacon ought to haue an attorney in every court to appeare to his majesties suite, and that London had such.... However certainely you ought when my lettres were come to you, nunc pro tune, to haue past the lettres of attorney I sent you under your comon seale and sent them me, and not to haue stopt them upon any private surmises from other hands then his you had entrusted in that matter; and the rather for that the judgments of law, espetially those taken by defaults for non appearances, are not like the laws of the Medes and Persians irrevocable, but are often on just grounds sett aside by the court here, and the defendants admitted to plead as if noe such judgments had been entred vp, and the very order it selfe of the 18th of June guies you a home instance of it.
“And indeed I did therefore forbeare giueing you an account of a further time being denyd, and the entry of judgment against you, expecting you would before such lettre could haue reacht you haue sent me the lettres of attorney vnder your corporacon seale that the court might haue been moved to admitt your appearance and plea and waiued the judgment.
“But instead of those lettres of attorney under your seale you sent me an address to his late majesty, I confess judiciously drawne. But it is my wonder in which of your capacityes you could imagine it should be presented to his majesty, for if as a corporacon, a body politique, it should have been putt under your corporacon seale if as a private comunity it should haue been signed by your order. But the paper has neither private hand nor publique seale to it and soe must be lost....
“In this condicon what could a man doe for you, nothing publiquely for he had noe warrant from you to justify the accon.” [Footnote: Mass. Archives, cvi. 343.]
So perished the Puritan Commonwealth. The child of the Reformation, its life sprang from the assertion of the freedom of the mind; but this great and noble principle is fatal to the temporal power of a priesthood, and during the supremacy of the clergy the government was doomed to be both persecuting and repressive. Under no circumstance could the theocracy have endured: it must have fallen by revolt from within if not by attack from without. That Charles II. did in fact cause its overthrow gives him a claim to our common gratitude, for he then struck a decisive blow for the emancipation of Massachusetts; and thus his successor was enabled to open before her that splendid career of democratic constitutional liberty which was destined to become the basis of the jurisprudence of the American Union.