nd inferences. The King received and answered their address
very graciously.[119] They professed to receive it gratefully; but their
consciousness of past unfaithfulness and transgressions, and their
jealous suspicions, apprehended evil from the general terms of the
King's reply, his reference to his Royal predecessors and religious
liberty, which above all things they most dreaded, desiring religious
liberty for themselves alone, but not for any Episcopalian,
Presbyterian, Baptist, or Quaker. They seem, however, to have been
surprised at the kindness of the King's answer, considering their former
conduct towards him and his Royal father, and towards the colonies that
loyally adhered to their King; and professed to have been excited to an
ecstasy of inexpressible delight and gratitude at the gracious words of
the best of kings.[120] Their address presented a curious mixture of
professed self-abasement, weakness, isolation, and affliction, with
fulsome adulation not surpassed by anything that could have been indited
by the most devout loyalist. But this honeymoon of adulation to the
restored King was not of long duration; the order of the King, September
8, 1661, to cease persecuting the Quakers, was received and submitted to
with remonstrance; and obedience to it was refused as far as sending the
accused Quakers to England for trial, as that would bring the Government
of Massachusetts Bay before the English tribunals.[121]

But petitions and representations poured in upon the King and Council
from Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, etc., from Massachusetts
Bay, and their friends in England, complaining that they were denied
liberty of worship, the ordinance of Baptism and the Lord's Supper to
their families and themselves, that they were deprived of even the
elective franchise because of their not being members of the
Congregational Church, and praying for the redress of their
grievances.[122]

The leaders of the colony had, however, warm and influential advocates
in the Council of the King: the Earl of Manchester, formerly commander
of the Parliamentary army against Charles the First, until supplanted by
Cromwell; Lord Say, a chief founder of Connecticut; and Mr. Morrice,
Secretary--all Puritans.[123] Under these influences the King sent a
letter to the colony, which had been avowedly at war in connection with
Cromwell, against his royal father and himself (and by which they had
justly forfeited the Charter, apar