ed naval _officers_, one for Boston, the other
for 'Salem and adjacent parts,' to be commissioned by the Governor, and
to exercise powers of a nature to control the Collector appointed in
England."[169]

After nearly twenty years' delay and evasions, they enacted, in 1679,
"that the Governor, Deputy Governor, and Magistrates should take the
oath of allegiance 'without any reservation,' in the words sent them by
his Majesty's orders; but instead of the 'reservation' in their form of
oath in former Acts, they virtually neutralized the oath by an Act
requiring a prior preliminary oath of fidelity to the local
Government,[170] an Act which the Board of Colonial Plantations viewed
as 'derogatory to his Majesty's honour, as well as defective in point of
their own duty.'"

They instructed their agents in England to represent that there was no
colonial law "prohibiting any such as were of the persuasion of the
Church of England." The design of this statement plainly was to impress
upon the mind of the King's Government that there was no obstruction to
the worship and ordinances of the Church of England, and that the
elective franchise and privilege of worship were as open to
Episcopalians as to Congregationalists--the reverse of fact. After
repeated letters from the King in favour of toleration as one of the
conditions of continuing their Charter, notwithstanding their past
violation of it, they _professed_ to comply with the royal injunctions,
but their professed compliance amounted practically to nothing, as they
had evidently intended. The King's Commissioners had said to the
Massachusetts Bay Court on this subject: "For the use of the Common
Prayer Book: His Majesty doth not impose the use of the Common Prayer
Book on any; but he understands that liberty of conscience comprehends
every man's conscience, as well as any particular, and thinks that all
his subjects should have equal right." To this the Massachusetts Court
replied: "Concerning the use of the Common Prayer Book and
ecclesiastical privileges, our humble addresses to his Majesty have
fully declared our main ends, in our being voluntary exiles from our
dear native country, which we had not chosen at so dear a rate, could we
have seen the word of God warranting us to perform our devotions in that
way; and to have the same set up here, we conceive it is apparent that
it will disturb our peace in our present enjoyment."[171]

But afterwards they found it dangerous