_It was itself an appeal to the discontent of the numerical majority, not invested with a share in the government._ And it frankly threatened an appeal to the English Parliament--an authority always to be dreaded, for encroachment on colonial rights, and especially to be dreaded at a moment when the more numerous party among its members were bent on setting up a Presbytery as the established religion of England and its dependencies, determined on a severe suppression of dissent from it, and keenly exasperated against that Independency which New England had raised up to torment them in their own sphere, and which, for herself, New England cherished as her life." "It being understood that two of the remonstrants, Fowle and Smith, were about to embark for England, to prosecute their business, the Court stopped them with a summons to appear and 'answer _to the matter of the petition_.' They replied 'to the Gentlemen Commissioners for Plantations;' and the Court committed them to the custody of the Marshal till they gave security to be responsible to the judgment of the Court.
The whole seven were next arraigned as authors of divers false and scandalous statements in a certain paper ...

against the Churches of Christ and the civil government here established, derogating from the honour and authority of the same, and tending to sedition.

Refusing to answer, and 'appealing from this government, they disclaimed the jurisdiction thereof.' This was more than Presbyterian malcontents could be indulged in at the present critical time in Massachusetts.

The Court found them all deeply blamable, and punished them by fines, which were to be remitted on their making 'an ingenuous and public acknowledgment of their misdemeanours;' a condition of indemnity which they all refused, probably in expectation of obtaining both relief and applause in England."-- "Four deputies opposed the sentence; three magistrates--Bellingham, Saltonstall, and Bradstreet--also dissented."-- Palfrey's History of New England, Vol.

I., pp.