ting Government of
Massachusetts Bay, or the supreme authority of England, both under a
King and under a professed republican commonwealth? 4. Mr. Bancroft
says: "Had the Long Parliament succeeded in revoking the patent of the
Massachusetts Bay,[90] the tenor of American history would have been
changed." I agree with him in this opinion, though probably not in his
application of it. I believe that the "tenor of American history" would
have led to as perfect an independence of the American States as they
now enjoy--as free, but a better system of government, and without their
ever having made war and bloodshed against Great Britain.

The facts thus referred to show that there were _Empire Loyalists_ in
America in the seventeenth, as there were afterwards in the eighteenth
century; they then embraced all the colonies of New England, except the
ruling party of Massachusetts Bay; they were all advocates of an equal
franchise, and equal religious and civil liberty for all classes--the
very reverse of the Massachusetts Government, which, while it denied any
subordination to England, denied religious and civil liberty to all
classes except members of the Congregational Churches.

It is a curious and significant fact, stated by Mr. Bancroft, that these
intolerant and persecuting proceedings of the Massachusetts Bay
Legislature were submitted to the Congregational ministers for their
approval and final endorsement. The Long Parliament in England checked
and ruled the Assembly of Westminster divines; but in Massachusetts the
divines, after a day's consideration, "approved the proceedings of the
General Court." No wonder that such divines, supported by taxes levied
by the State and rulers of the State, denounced all toleration of
dissent from their Church and authority.

Before leaving this subject, I must notice the remarks of Mr.
Palfrey,--the second, if not first in authority of the historians of New
England.

Mr. Palfrey ascribes what he calls "the Presbyterian Cabal" to Mr.
William Vassal, who was one of the founders and first Council of the
colony of Massachusetts Bay, whose brother Samuel had shared with
Hampden the honour of having refused to pay ship-money to Charles, and
who was now, with the Earl of Warwick,[91] one of the Parliamentary
Commissioners for the colonies. It appears that Mr. Vassal opposed from
the beginning the new system of Church and proscriptive civil government
set up at Massachusetts Bay, and ther