The address is a curiosity in its way, and a strange medley which I must leave the reader to characterize in view of the facts involved.

The following are the principal passages of it: Extracts from the Massachusetts General Court--Address to the King, dated 19th December, 1660: "To the High and Mighty Prince, Charles the Second, by the grace of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith.
"Most gracious and dread Sovereign: "May it please your Majesty--In the day wherein you happily say you know you are King over your British Israel, to cast a favourable eye upon your poore Mephiboseth now, and by reason of lameness in respect of distance, not until now appearing in your presence, we mean upon New England, kneeling with the rest of your subjects before your Majesty as her restored King.

We forget not our ineptness as to those approaches; we at present owne such impotence as renders us unable to excuse our impotency of speaking unto our Lord the King; yet contemplating such a King, who hath also seen adversity, that he knoweth the hearts of exiles, who himself hath been an exile, the aspect of Majesty extraordinarily influenced animateth exanimated outcasts, yet outcasts as we hope for the truth, to make this address unto our Prince, hoping to find grace in your sight.

We present this script, the transcript of our loyall hearts, wherein we crave leave to supplicate your Majesty for your gracious protection of us in the continuance both of our civill and religious liberties (according to the grantees known, and of suing for the patent) conferred on this Plantation by your royal father.

This, viz., our libertie to walk in the faith of the gospell, was the cause of our transporting ourselves, with our wives, little ones, and our substances, from that over the Atlantick ocean, into the vast wilderness, choosing rather the pure Scripture worship with a good conscience in this remote wilderness among the heathen, than the pleasures of England with submission to _the impositions_ of the _then_ so disposed and so far _prevailing hierarchy_, which we could not do without an evil conscience." "Our witness is in heaven that we left not our native country upon any dissatisfaction as to the constitution of the civil state.