Wherefore our humble desire and request is, that you would be pleased to consider of our present condition and upon what foundation we stand, and unanimously concurr to establish the fundamentall and wholesome lawes of our native country, and such others as are no wayes repugnant to them, unto which all of us are most accustomed; and we suppose them best agreeable to our English tempers, and yourselves obliged thereunto by the generall charter and your oathes of allegiance....
2. Whereas there are many thousands in these plantations, of the English nation, freeborne, quiett and peaceable men, righteous in their dealings, forward with hand, heart and purse, to advance the publick good, knowne friends to the honorable and victorious Houses of Parliament, lovers of their nation, etc. who are debarred from all civill imployments (without any just cause that we know) not being permitted to bear the least office (though it cannot be denied but some are well qualifyed) no not so much as to have any vote in choosing magistrates, captains or other civill and military officers; notwithstanding they have here expended their youth, borne the burthen of the day, wasted much of their estates for the subsistence of these poore plantations, paid all assessments, taxes, rates, at least equall, if not exceeding others, yea when the late warre was denounced against the Narrowganset Indians, without their consent, their goods were seized on for the service, themselves and servants especially forced and impressed to serve in that warre, to the hazarding of all things most dear and near unto them, whence issue forth many great inconveniences, secret discontents, murmurings, rents in the plantations, discouragements in their callings, unsettlednes in their minds, strife, contention, and the Lord only knows to what a flame in time it may kindle; also jealousies of too much unwarranted power and dominion on the one side, and of perpetual slavry and bondage on the other, and, which is intollerable, even by those who ought to love and respect them as brethren.
We therefore desire that civill liberty and freedom be forthwith granted to all truely English, equall to the rest of their countrymen, as in all plantations is accustomed to be done, and us all freeborne enjoy in our native country (we hoping here in some things to enjoy greater liberties than elsewhere, counting it no small losse of liberty to be as it were banished from our native home, and enforced to lay our bones in a strange wildernes) without imposing any oathes or covenant on them, ... Further, that none of the English nation, who at this time are too forward to be gone, and very backward to come hither, be banished, unles they break the known lawes of England in so high a measure, as to deserve so high a punishment; and that those few that come over may settle here without having two magistrates hands, which sometimes not being possible to obtain, hath procured a kind of banishment to some, who might have been serviceable to this place, as they have been to the state of England, etc. And we likewise desire that no greater punishments be inflicted upon offenders than are allowed and sett by the laws of our native country.
3. Whereas there are diverse sober, righteous and godly men, eminent for knowledge and other gracious gifts of the holy spirit, no wayes scandalous in their lives and conversation, members of the church of England (in all ages famous for piety and learning) not dissenting from the latest and best reformation of England, Scotland, etc. yet they and their posterity are deteined from the seales of the covenant of free grace, because, as it is supposed, they will not take these churches covenants, for which as yet they see no light in Gods word; neither can they clearly perceive what they are, every church having their covenant differing from anothers, at least in words....
We therefore humbly intreat you, in whose hands it is to help and whose judicious eyes discern these great inconveniences, for the glory of God and the comfort of your brethren and countrymen, to give liberty to the members of the church of England, not scandalous in their lives and conversations (as members of these churches) to be taken into your congregation and to enjoy with you all those liberties and ordinances Christ hath purchased for them. ...[84]
These things being granted ... we hope to see the now contemned ordinances of God highly prized ... To conclude, all businesses in church and commonwealth (which for many years have seemed to go backward ...) successfully thriving....
Subscribed
Robert Child[85] [and six others].
87. Punishment for not Attending "Approved" Churches, 1666
Thomas Hutchinson's Collection of Original Papers (1769), 399-400. Hutchinson adds in a note that the three persons here condemned were Baptists who were trying to set up a church in Boston.