admonition, fine, or correction, at
discretion."

"Excess in apparel, strange new fashions, naked breasts and arms, and
pinioned superfluous ribbands on hair and apparel. The Court to fine
offenders at discretion."

"A loose and sinful custom of riding from town to town, men and women
together, under pretence of going to lectures, but really to drink and
revel in taverns, tending to debauchery and unchastity. All single
persons, being offenders, to be bound in their good behaviour, with
sureties in twenty pounds fine, or suffer fine and imprisonment."--_Ib._,
pp. 320, 321, in a note.

The foregoing pages show the notions and appreciation of the religious
rights and liberties by the Massachusetts Bay rulers and legislators in
regard to Episcopalians, Baptists, and Quakers. The above quoted clauses
of their law passed in 1667, nearly fifty years after the establishment
of their government, illustrate their ideas of individual liberty.]

[Footnote 177: Palfrey, Vol. III., p. 353. Much has been written about
these Acts of Trade and Navigation, as if they were acts of royal
despotism and designed to oppress the colonies for the benefit of
England; whereas they originated with the Commonwealth, and were
designed to benefit the colonies as well as the mother country. "After
the decapitation of Charles I.," says Minot, "the confused situation of
England prevented any particular attention to the colony until
Cromwell's Government. The very qualities which existed in the character
of the inhabitants to render them displeasing to the late King, operated
as much with the Protector in their favour; and he diverted all
complaints of their enemies against them. Yet he procured the Navigation
Act to be passed by the Parliament, which was a source of future
difficulty to the colony, though it was evaded in New England at first
(by Cromwell's connivance with the rulers of Massachusetts Colony), as
they still traded in all parts and enjoyed a privilege, peculiar to
themselves, of importing their goods into England free of all customs."
(Minot's Continuation of the History of Massachusetts Bay, published
according to Act of Congress, Vol. I., p. 40.)

Mr. Hildreth, referring to the early part of Charles the Second's
restoration, says: "As yet the Acts of Trade were hardly a subject of
controversy. The Parliament, which had welcomed back the King, had
indeed re-enacted with additional clauses the ordinance of 1651--an Act
which, by re