me authority to the Parliament, though hailed
with enthusiasm in New England, increased, if anything, her
confidence. In the summer of 1644 a ship bearing a commission from the
Parliament attacked and captured in the harbor of Boston another ship
friendly to the king; Massachusetts showed her displeasure by
addressing a strong protest to Parliament. Not long after another
vessel of Parliament attacked a ship belonging to persons from
Dartmouth in sympathy with the king. This time Winthrop turned the
guns of the battery upon the parliamentary captain and made him pay a
barrel of powder for his insolence.[2]

The same summary action was adopted in regard to the growing demand
for a freer suffrage. In May, 1646, an able and respectful petition
was presented to the general court for the removal of the civil
disabilities of all members of the churches of England and Scotland,
signed by William Vassall, Samuel Maverick, Dr. Robert Child, and four
other prominent Presbyterians. The petition was pronounced seditious
and scandalous, and the petitioners were roundly fined. When Child set
out for England with his grievances, he was arrested and his baggage
searched. Then, to the horror of the rulers of Massachusetts, there
was discovered a petition addressed to Parliament, suggesting that
Presbyterianism should be established in New England and that a
general governor should be sent over. The signers, brought before the
court, were fined more heavily than before and imprisoned for six
months. At length Vassall and his friends contrived to reach England,
expecting to receive the aid of the Presbyterian party in Parliament;
but misfortune overtook them there as in Massachusetts, for the
Independents were now in control and no help could be obtained from
them.[3]

The agitation in England in favor of Presbyterianism, and the petition
of Vassall and his friends in Massachusetts, induced the general court
in May, 1646, to invite the clergy to meet at Cambridge, "there to
discuss, dispute, and clear up, by the word of God, such questions of
church government and discipline as they should think needful and
meet," until "one form of government and discipline" should be
determined upon. The "synod" met September 1, 1646, and after
remaining in session fourteen days they adjourned. In August, 1648,
after the downfall of Presbyterianism in England, another meeting was
held, and a plan of church government was agreed upon, by which order
a