government live, our patent live, our magistrates
live, our religious enjoyments live; so shall we all yet have farther
cause to say from our hearts, let the King live for ever." This
address was accompanied with letters to many of the nobility supposed
to possess influence at court, praying their intercession in behalf of
the colony; but neither the address, nor the letters were favourably
received.[97]

[Footnote 97: Hutchison.]

{1665}

[Sidenote: Conduct of Massachusetts to the royal commissioners.]

In April the commissioners arrived at Boston, and their communications
with the general court commenced. The suspicions which these two
bodies entertained of each other, opposed great obstacles to any
cordial co-operation between them. The papers, on the part of the
commissioners, display high ideas of their own authority, as the
representatives of the crown, and a pre-conceived opinion that there
was a disposition in the government to resist that authority. Those on
the part of the general court manifest a wish to avoid a contest with
the crown, and a desire to gratify his majesty, so far as professions
of loyalty and submission could gratify him; but they manifest also a
conviction of having done nothing improper, and a steadfast
determination to make no concession incompatible with their rights.
With these impressions, the correspondence soon became an altercation.
The commissioners, finding their object was to be obtained neither by
reasoning, nor by threats, attempted a practical assertion of their
powers by summoning the parties before them, in order to hear and
decide a complaint against the governor and company. The general
court, with a decision which marked alike their vigour, and the high
value they placed on their privileges, announced by sound of trumpet,
their disapprobation of this proceeding, which they termed
inconsistent with the laws and established authority; and declared
that, in observance of their duty to God and to his majesty, and of
the trust reposed in them by his majesty's good subjects in the
colony, they could not consent to such proceedings, nor countenance
those who would so act, or such as would abet them.

As a ground of compromise, the court stated their willingness to hear
the case themselves in the presence of the commissioners, who would
thereby be enabled to understand its merits; but this proposition was
at once rejected, and every effort towards reconciliation proved