manorial times, and the writ of
_habeas corpus_ was suspended. Dudley was appointed censor of the press,
and nothing was allowed to be printed without his permission. All the
public records of the late New England governments were ordered to be
brought to Boston, whither it thus became necessary to make a tedious
journey in order to consult them. All deeds and wills were required
to be registered in Boston, and excessive fees were charged for the
registry. It was proclaimed that all private titles to land were to be
ransacked, and that whoever wished to have his title confirmed must pay
a heavy quit-rent, which under the circumstances amounted to blackmail.
The General Court was abolished. The power of taxation was taken from
the town-meetings and lodged with the governor. Against this crowning
iniquity the town of Ipswich, led by its sturdy pastor, John Wise, made
protest. In response Mr. Wise was thrown into prison, fined L50, and
suspended from the ministry. A notable and powerful character was this
John Wise. One of the broadest thinkers and most lucid writers of his
time, he seems like a forerunner of the liberal Unitarian divines of
the nineteenth century. His "Vindication of the Government of the New
England Churches," published in 1717, was a masterly exposition of the
principles of civil government, and became "a text book of liberty for
our Revolutionary fathers, containing some of the notable expressions
that are used in the Declaration of Independence." [Sidenote: Tyranny]
[Sidenote: John Wise of Ipswich]

It was on the trial of Mr. Wise in October, 1687, that Dudley openly
declared that the people of New England had now no further privileges
left them than not to be sold for slaves. Such a state of things in the
valley of the Euphrates would not have attracted comment; the peasantry
of central Europe would have endured it until better instructed; but in
an English community it could not last long. If James II. had remained
upon the throne, New England would surely have soon risen in rebellion
against Andros. But the mother country had by this time come to repent
the fresh lease of life which she had granted to the Stuart dynasty
after Cromwell's death. Tired of the disgraceful subservience of her
Court to the schemes of Louis XIV., tired of fictitious plots and
judicial murders, tired of bloody assizes and declarations of indulgence
and all the strange devices of Stuart tyranny, England endured the
arroganc