and appoint Colonial Governors and
other local officers; whereas the Commissioners appointed by Charles the
Second had no authority to remove or appoint a single local Governor or
other officer, to annul or enact a single law, but to inquire and
report; and even as a Court of Appeal their proceedings and decisions
were to be reported for final action in England.

The famous Act of Navigation itself, which ultimately became the chief
ground of the American revolutionary war, was passed by the
Commonwealth, though, by a collusion between Cromwell and the rulers of
Massachusetts Bay, its provisions were evaded in that colony, while
rigorously enforced in the other colonies.[165]

In the first year of Charles the Second this Act was renewed, with some
additional provisions.[166]

But to return to the correspondence between the King's Government and
the rulers of Massachusetts Bay. It may be supposed that after the King
had promised, in 1662, to forget past offences and continue the justly
forfeited Royal Charter upon certain conditions, and that those
conditions were evaded by various devices during nearly twenty years,
the Royal patience would become exhausted, and that, instead of the
gentle instructions and remonstrances which had characterized his former
letters, the King would adopt more severe and imperative language. Hence
in his next letter, September 30, 1680, to the Governor and Council of
the Massachusetts, he commences in the following words:

"CHARLES R.

"Trusty and well beloved, we greet you well. When by our Royal letter,
bearing date the 24th day of July, in the one and thirtieth year of our
reign, we signified unto you our gracious inclination to have all past
deeds forgotten, setting before you the means whereby you might deserve
our pardon, and commanding your ready obedience to several particulars
therein contained, requiring withall a speedy compliance with the
intimations of your duty given to your late agents during their
attendance here, all which we esteem essential to your quiet settlement
and natural obedience due unto us. We then little thought that those
marks of our grace and favour should have found no better acceptance
among you, but that, before all things, you should have given preference
to the execution of our commands, when after so many months we come to
understand by a letter from you to one of our principal Secretaries of
State, dated the 21st of May last, that very few of our