That all persons of good and honest lives and conversations be admitted to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the said Book of Common Prayer, and their children to Baptism."[124] Nothing could be more kind and assuring than the terms of the King's letter, notwithstanding the former hostility of the Massachusetts Bay rulers to him and his Royal father,[125] and nothing could be more reasonable than the five conditions on which he assured them of the oblivion of the past and the continuance of the Royal Charter; but with not one of these conditions did they take a step to comply for several months, under the pretext of affording time, after publishing it, that "all persons might have opportunity to consider what was necessary to be done," though the "all persons" referred to included only one-sixth of the population: for the term "Freeman of Massachusetts" was at that time, and for thirty years before and afterwards, synonymous with member of one of the Congregational Churches.

And it was against their disloyalty and intolerance that the five conditions of the King's pardon were chiefly directed.

With some of these conditions they never complied; with others only as they were compelled, and even complained of them afterwards as an invasion of their chartered privileges,[126] though, in their first order for public thanksgiving for the King's letter, they spoke of it as assuring "the continuance of peace, liberties and the gospel." Though the agent of Rhode Island met the agents of Massachusetts Bay Colony before the King, and challenged them to cite, in behalf of Massachusetts, one act of duty or loyalty to the kings of England, in support of their present professions as loyal subjects; yet the King was not disposed to punish them for the past, but continue to them their privileges, as they desired and promised they would act with loyalty and tolerance in the future.[127] The King's promised oblivion of the past and recognition of the Charter was hailed and assumed as _unconditional_, while the King's conditions were ignored and remained a dead letter.

The elective franchise and eligibility for office were still, _as_ heretofore, the exclusive prerogative of Congregational Church members; the government of the colony was still in the hands alone of Congregational ministers and magistrates, and which they cleaved to as for life; their persecutions of those who did not worship as they did, continued without abatement; they persisted in their theocratic independence, and pretended to do all this under a Royal Charter which forbade their making laws or regulations contrary to the laws of England, acting also in the face of the King's conditions of pardoning their past offences, and perpetuating their Charter privileges.
The King's letter was dated the 28th of June, 1662, and was presented by Mr.Bradstreet and Mr.Norton to the Governor and General Court at Boston, 8th of October, 1662;[128] but it was not until a General Court called in August, 1664, that "the said letter was communicated to the whole assembly, according to his Majesty's command, and copies thereof spread abroad."[129] In the meantime they boasted of their Charter being recognised by the King, according, of course, to their own interpretation of it, while for _twenty-two months_ they withheld the King's letter, against his orders, from being published; concealing from the victims of their proscription and persecution the toleration which the King had announced as the conditions of his perpetuating the Charter.
It is not surprising that those proscribed and persecuted parties in Massachusetts Bay Colony should complain to the King's Government that the local Government had denied them every privilege which his Majesty had assured to them through their friends in England, and by alleged orders to the Government of Massachusetts Bay, and therefore that the King's Government should determine to appoint Commissioners to proceed to the New England colonies to investigate the complaints made, and to regulate the affairs of the colonies after the disorders of the then recent civil war, during which the Massachusetts Bay Government had wholly identified itself with Cromwell, and acted in hostility to those other American colonies which would not renounce their allegiance to the Throne, and avow allegiance to the usurper.
It was not till the Government of Massachusetts Bay saw that their silence could no longer be persisted in with safety, and that a Royal Commission was inevitable,[130] that they even published the King's letter, and then, as a means of further procrastination and delay, they appended their order that the conditions prescribed in the Royal letter, which "had influence upon the Churches as well as the civil state, should be suspended until the Court should take action thereon"-- thus subordinating the orders of the King to the action of the Massachusetts Bay Court.
From the Restoration, reports were most industriously circulated in the Bay Colony, designed to excite popular suspicion and hostility against the Royal Government, such as that their constitution and Church privileges were to be suppressed, and superseded by a Royal Governor and the Episcopal hierarchy, etc.; and before the arrival of the Royal Commissioners the object of their appointment was misrepresented and their character assailed; it was pretended their commission was a bogus one, prepared "under an old hedge,"[131] and all this preparatory to the intended resistance of the Commissioners by the Governor and Council of Massachusetts Bay.
The five conditions of continuing the Charter, specified in the King's letter of the 28th of June, 1662, the publication of which was suppressed by the Massachusetts Bay Court for nearly two years, and the intolerance and proscription which it was intended to redress being still practised, were doubtless among the causes which led to the appointment of the Royal Commissioners; but that Commission had reference to other colonies as well as Massachusetts Bay, and to other subjects than the intolerant proscriptions of that colony.[132] All the New England colonies except that of Massachusetts Bay respectfully and cordially received the Royal Commissioners, and gave entire satisfaction in the matters which the Commissioners were intended to investigate.[133] The Congregational rulers of Massachusetts Bay alone rejected the Royal Commissioners, denied their authority, and assailed their character.

In the early history of Upper Canada, when one Church claimed to be established above every other, and the local Government sustained its pretensions as if authorized by law, it is known with what tenacity and denunciation the Canadian ecclesiastic-civil government resisted all appeals, both to the Local Legislature and to England, for a liberal government of equal laws and equal rights for all classes of the King's subjects in Canada.