In both cases the victims of religious intolerance and civil tyranny were men of the highest position and intelligence.

The statements of the petitioners in 1646 (the truth of which could not be denied, though the petitioners were punished for telling it) show the state of bondage and oppression to which all who would not join the Congregational Churches--that is, five-sixths of the population--were reduced under this system of Church government--the Congregational Church members alone electors, alone eligible to be elected, alone law-makers and law administrators, alone imposing taxes, alone providing military stores and commanding the soldiery; and then the victims of such a Government were pronounced and punished as "conspirators" and "traitors" when they ventured to appeal for redress to the Mother Country.

The most exclusive and irresponsible Government that ever existed in Canada in its earliest days never approached such a despotism as this of Massachusetts Bay.

I leave the reader to decide, when he peruses what was petitioned for--first to the Massachusetts Legislature, and then to the English Parliament--who were the real "traitors" and who the "conspirators" against right and liberty: the "Presbyterian cabal," as Mr.Palfrey terms the petitioners, or those who imprisoned and fined them, and seized their papers.

Mr.
Hutchinson, the best informed and most candid of the New England historians, states the affair of the petitioners, their proceedings and treatment, and the petition which they presented, as follows: "A great disturbance was caused in the colony this year [1646] by a number of persons of figure, but of different sentiments, both as to civil and ecclesiastical government, from the people in general.