Lord Clarendon, in his letter to the Governor Endicot, given above, pp.

160, 161, explains his colonial policy, which was not only to maintain the Charter in its integrity, but to see that its provisions and objects were not violated but fulfilled, and that while the Congregational worship should not be interfered with, the Congregational Government should not proscribe from the elective franchise and liberty of worship the members of other Protestant denominations.

The Hon.

Robert Boyle, the philosopher and benefactor of New England, and President of the New England Society for Propagation of the Gospel among the Indians, expressed the same views with Lord Clarendon, and there is not a shadow of proof that Lord Clarendon ever entertained any other policy in regard to New England than that which he expressed in his letter to Governor Endicot in 1664.
Dr.Palfrey and other New England historians occupy four-fifths of their pages with accounts of the continental proceedings of the Governments of the Stuarts, and their oppressions and persecutions of Nonconformists in England, and then _assume_ that their policy was the same in regard to the New England Colonies, and that the Massachusetts Bay Colony was therefore the champion defender of colonial liberties, in denying responsibility to the Imperial Government for its acts, and refusing the usual oaths, and acts of allegiance to the Throne; whereas their _assumptions_ (for they are nothing else) are unsupported by a single fact, and are contradicted, without exception, by the declarations and acts of the Government of Charles the Second, as well as by those of his royal father.

Language can hardly exaggerate or reprobate in too strong terms the cruel persecutions of dissenters from the Established Episcopal Church in England, by both Charles the First and Charles the Second; but the Congregational Government of Massachusetts Bay exceeded that of the Charleses in proscribing and persecuting dissenters from their Established Congregational Churches in that colony; and as well might Messrs.