chusetts Bay Colony alone, in contradistinction to all the other
British colonies in America, denied in short the authority of both King
and Parliament, though often amidst wordy professions of personal
loyalty to the Throne. Mr. Bancroft well sums up the history of
Massachusetts pretensions and intolerance in the sentences:
"Massachusetts owned no King but the King of Heaven." "Massachusetts
gave franchises to the members of the visible Church," but "inexorably
disfranchised Churchmen, Royalists, and all the world's people." "In
Massachusetts, the songs of Deborah and David were sung without change;
hostile Algonquins like the Canaanites were exterminated or enslaved;
and a peevish woman was hanged, because it was written, 'The witch shall
die.'"[178]

No hostile pen ever presented in so few and expressive words the
character and policy of the Government of Massachusetts Bay during the
whole existence of the first Charter, as is presented in these words of
their eulogist Bancroft; and these words express the causes of their
contests with the Crown and Parliament, of their proscription and
persecution of the majority of their fellow-colonists not of their
politics or form of worship, and of their dealing at pleasure with the
territories of their neighbours,[179] and the lands and lives of the
Indian tribes.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 114: The captain of a ship brought the news from England in
July, that the King had been proclaimed, but a false rumour was
circulated that the Government in England was in a very unsettled state,
the body of the people dissatisfied; that the Scotch had demanded work;
that Lord Fairfax was at the head of a great army, etc. Such a rumour
was so congenial to the feelings of the men who had been lauding
Cromwell, that when it was proposed in the General Court of
Massachusetts Bay, in the October following, to address the King, the
majority refused to do so. They awaited to see which party would prevail
in England, so as to pay court to it. On the 30th of November a ship
arrived from Bristol, bringing news of the utter falsity of the rumours
about the unsettled state of things and popular dissatisfaction in
England, and of the proceedings of Parliament; and letters were received
from their agent, Mr. Leverett, that petitions and complaints were
preferred against the colony to the King in Council. Then the Governor
and assistants called a meeting of the General Court, December 9th, when
a very