nditions on
which he proposed to pardon and obliterate the past and continue the
Charter, and when they resisted his Commissioners, and employed military
force to oppose the exercise of their powers, and set aside their
decisions; instead of which he remonstrated with them for more than
twenty years, and then gave them long notice and choice to retain the
Charter with his "Regulations" on the disputed points, or contest the
Charter, as to their observance of it, in a Court of law. Under the
impulse and guidance of violent counsels they chose the latter, and lost
their Charter. In their very last address to the King, they gratefully
acknowledged his kindness in all his despatches and treatment of them,
contrary to the statements and imputations of modern New England
historians; yet they denied him the authority universally acknowledged
and exercised by Queen Victoria and English Courts of law over the
legislative, judicial, and even administrative acts of every province of
the British Empire. Dr. Palfrey says: "In the Upper branch of the
Government there was found at length a _servile_ majority;" but "the
deputies were prepared for no such _suicide_, though there were not
wanting faint hearts and grovelling aims among them."[192] At the head
of what Dr. Palfrey terms the "servile majority" was the venerable
Governor Bradstreet, now more than ninety years of age, the only
survivor of the original founders of the colony, who had been a
magistrate more than fifty years, more than once Governor, always a
faithful and safe counsellor, the agent of the colony in England, and
obtaining in June, 1662, the King's letter of pardon--oblivion of the
past and promised continuance of the Charter on certain conditions--a
letter which the Colonial Court said filled them with inexpressible joy
and gratitude (see above, page 141), who then advised them to comply
with the King's requirements, and who, after twenty years' further
experience and knowledge of public affairs and parties, advises them to
pursue the same course for which he is now termed "servile," and ranked
with cowards and men of "grovelling aims," advising the colony to commit
political "suicide." The result showed who were the real authors of the
"suicide," and Dr. Palfrey forcibly states the result of their doings in
the following words:

"Massachusetts, as a body politic, was now no more. The elaborate
fabric, that had been fifty-four years in building, was levelled to th