In their addresses to Parliament and Cromwell they professed their readiness to _fall_ as well as rise with the cause of the Parliament; but when that _fell_, they repudiated all connection with it.
In the year 1651, and during the very Session of Parliament to which the General Court addressed its petition and narrated its sacrifices and doings in the cause of the Parliament, the latter passed the famous Navigation Act, which was re-enacted and improved ten years afterwards, under Charles the Second, and which became the primary pretext of the American Revolution.

The Commonwealth was at this time at war with the Dutch republic, which had almost destroyed and absorbed the shipping trade of England.

Admiral Blake was just commencing that series of naval victories which have immortalized his name, and placed England from that time to this at the head of the naval powers of the world.

Sir Henry Vane, as the Minister of the Navy, devised and carried through Parliament the famous Navigation Act--an Act which the colony of Massachusetts, by the connivance of Cromwell (who now identified himself with that colony), regularly evaded, at the expense of the American colonies and the English revenue.[98] Mr.Palfrey says: "The people of Massachusetts might well be satisfied with their condition and prospects.

Everything was prospering with them.