rms; but there was a case of _quo warranto_ pending in
the Court of King's Bench against the Puritan Government for the
violation of their Charter, which delayed the issuing of a Royal Charter
to Plymouth. Charles died soon after;[16] the Charter of the
Massachusetts Corporation was forfeited by the decision of the Court,
and James the Second appointed a Royal Governor and a Royal
Commissioner, which changed for the time being the whole face of things
in New England.

It, however, deserves notice, that the Massachusetts Puritans, true to
their instinct of encroaching upon the rights of others, whether of the
King or of their neighbours, white or tawny, did all in their power to
prevent the Pilgrims of Plymouth--the pioneers of settlement and
civilization in New England--from obtaining a Royal Charter. This they
did first in 1630, again in the early part of Charles the Second's
reign, and yet again towards its end. Finally, after the cancelling of
the Massachusetts Charter, and the English Revolution of 1688, the
agents of the more powerful and populous Massachusetts colony succeeded
in getting the colony of Plymouth absorbed into that of Massachusetts
Bay by the second Royal Charter granted by William and Mary in 1692.
"The junction of Plymouth with Massachusetts," says Moore, "destroyed
all the political consequence of the former. The people of Plymouth
shared but few favours which the new Government had to bestow, and it
was seldom indeed that any resident of what was termed the old colony
obtained any office of distinction in the Provisional Government, or
acquired any influence in its councils."[17]

This seems a melancholy termination of the Government of the
Pilgrims--a princely race of men, who voluntarily braved the sufferings
of a double exile for the sake of what they believed to be the truth and
the glory of God; whose courage never failed, nor their loyalty wavered
amidst all their privations and hardships; who came to America to enjoy
religious liberty and promote the honour of England, not to establish
political independence, and granted that liberty to others which they
earned and had suffered so much to enjoy themselves; who were honourable
and faithful to their treaty engagements with the aborigines as they
were in their communications with the Throne; who never betrayed a
friend or fled from an enemy; who left imperishable footprints of their
piety and industry, as well as of their love of liberty and