The whole contest had now obviously reached the fundamental point of sovereignty, which was clearly stated in a letter to Massachusetts, a few weeks later, from Carr, Cartwright, and Maverick, who were then in New Hampshire. “The King did not grant away his Soveraigntie over you,” they wrote, “when he made you a Corporation. When His Majesty gave you power to make wholesome laws and to administer Justice by them, he parted not with his right of judging whether those laws were wholesom or whether justice was administered accordingly or no. When His Majesty gave you authority over such of his subjects as lived within the limits of your jurisdiction, he made them not your subjects nor you their supream authority.” Unpalatable as these words may have been to the Massachusetts Court, there can be no doubt that they expressed the truth, as did also the Commissioners' warning that “striveing to grasp too much, may make you hold but a little.” The future was clearly fore-shadowed. “'Tis possible that the Charter which you so much idolize may be forfeited,” the Commissioners added, “until you have cleared yourselves of those many injustices, oppressions, violences, and bloud for which you are complained against, to which complaints you have refused to answer.”[[826]] There was, indeed, to be no other course. If Massachusetts under her charter should persist in considering herself superior to the power which had granted it, that power would have no option but to recognize her complete independence or to annul the charter.
In New Hampshire, the acts of the three Commissioners were ill-judged and but little likely to reflect credit upon the King, or to secure the adherence of the people, while Massachusetts by prompt and forceful measures asserted her claims in the face of the royal agents.[[827]] In Maine, the latter attempted to organize a temporary government, pending the settlement of the dispute between Massachusetts and Gorges, and they likewise endeavored, even more unsuccessfully, to set up administrative machinery in the territory east of Pemaquid, which had been granted to the Duke of York. Within less than three years, Massachusetts, assisted by the desire of the inhabitants for a settled government, had once more taken the province under her jurisdiction, although not without local opposition.[[828]]
In what had been considered their most important work, the reduction of the Dutch and the establishment of the English authority at New York, the Commissioners had been entirely successful, as they had been also in their relations with the three southern colonies in New England; and the settlement of the dispute between Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the Atherton Company was of great benefit to the colonies. In the matter of Massachusetts, however, they had completely failed. Three of them advised taking away the charter, while Maverick made several suggestions, including the prohibiting of trade with the recalcitrant colony, as did Nicolls also.[[829]]
In 1666, the King sent a circular letter to the various colonies, expressing satisfaction with all except Massachusetts, whose claim of independent sovereignty, he noted, was “a matter of such high consequence as every man discerns where it must end”; and he commanded the colony to send four or five agents to England, including Bellingham and Hathorne, to answer the charges against her.[[830]] This the Court flatly refused to do, and so notified the King, though they sent him their prayers for his eternal happiness.[[831]] Their refusal, however, by no means met with unanimous approval among the influential elements in the colony. A petition was presented to the Court, signed by a hundred and seventy-one individuals, including such names as Winslow, Brattle, Gerrish, Hale, Coffin, Perkins, Hubbard, and others of note in Boston, Salem, Newbury, and Ipswich, while most of the people of Hingham were said to have signed also, although their deputy refused to deliver their petition.[[832]] The signers pleaded that nothing further be done justly to offend the home government, and that the agents asked for be sent. They pointed out that “the doubtful interpretation of the words of a patent, which there can be no reason should ever be construed to the divesting of a sovereign prince of his royall power over his naturall subjects and liege people, is too frail a foundation to build such a transcendent immunity and privilege upon.”[[833]]
But those attempting to maintain the power of the theocracy would not be turned from their course, though by it they made the eventual loss of the charter both necessary and certain. Owing to the fact that England was now at war with both Holland and France, neither time nor thought could be given to a rebellious colony, and Massachusetts was to be allowed to go her way for another decade. Her own rulers, however, had definitely determined what her fate should be when the authorities in England should once more be free to act. In a little more than that period, she was to find herself, without a charter and without a friend, defenseless before the last of the Stuarts; and it was only the final revolt of the people of England against that dynasty which was to save her from the full effects of the policy of her theocracy, and to secure to all her citizens the same measure of political equality that was enjoyed by their neighbors.
[769]. Cf. Lord Acton, Modern History, pp. 205 f.
[770]. Hutchinson, History, vol. I, pp. 174, 179.
[771]. Massachusetts Records, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 229.
[772]. R. I. Records, vol. I, pp. 356, 389; New York Colonial Documents, vol. XIV, p. 459. In the same year, the directors of the Dutch West India Company wrote to Stuyvesant that he should treat the English frigate, “which lies at New Haven and has already threatened the communication between the Manhattans and New England,” as a pirate. Ibid., p. 458. Cf. Ibid., p. 453.