or rather that which is
dearer than life, that we have ventured our lives, and willingly passed
through many deaths to obtain), and our all at our request. Let our
government live, our patent live, our magistrates live, our laws and
liberties live, our religious enjoyments live; so shall we all yet have
further cause to say from our hearts, let the King live for ever. And
the blessing of them that were ready to perish shall come upon your
Majesty; having delivered the poor that cried, and such as had none to
help them. It was an honour to one of your royal ancestors that he was
called the poor man's king. It was Job's excellency that he sat as king
among his people--that he was a father to the poor. They are a poor
people (destitute of outward favour, wealth and power) who now cry to
their lord the King. May your Majesty please to regard their cause and
maintain their right. It will stand among the marks of lasting honour to
after generations. And we and ours shall have lasting cause to rejoice,
that we have been numbered among your Majesty's most humble servants and
suppliants.

"25th October, 1664."

As the Massachusetts Governor and Council had endorsed a copy of the
foregoing petition to the Earl of Clarendon, then Lord Chancellor (who
had dictated, with the Puritan ministers of the King, his generous
letter of the 28th of June, 1662), I will here insert Lord Clarendon's
reply to them, in which he vindicates the appointment of the
Commissioners, and exposes the unreasonableness of the statements and
conduct of the Massachusetts Court. The letter is as follows:

Copy of a letter from the Earl of Clarendon to the Massachusetts Colony
in 1664:--

"MR. GOVERNOR AND GENTLEMEN,

"I have received yours of the 7th of November, by the hands of Mr.
Ashurst, a very sober and discreet person, and did (by his communicating
it to me) peruse the petition you had directed to his Majesty; and I do
confess to you, I am so much a friend to your colony that if the same
had been communicated to nobody but myself, I should have dissuaded the
presenting the same to his Majesty, who I doubt will not think himself
well treated by it, or the singular care he hath expressed of his
subjects in those parts sufficiently acknowledged; but since I found by
your letter to my Lord Chamberlaine and Mr. Boyle, that you expect some
effect from your petition, upon conference with them wee all agreed not
to hinder the delivery of it, though I have