"But," says Dr.Holmes, "that colony, taking advantage of the distractions which soon after ensued in England, resumed its government and enjoyed it without further interruption until the Restoration." (Holmes' Annals, etc., Vol.

I., p.

297.) "The restoration of Charles the Second," says Judge Story, "seems to have given great satisfaction to these Plantations.

They immediately proclaimed the King and sent an agent to England; and in July, 1663, after some opposition, they succeeded in obtaining a Charter from the Crown." "The most remarkable circumstance in the Charter, and that which exhibits the strong feeling and spirit of the colony, is the provision for _religious freedom_.

The Charter, after reciting the petition of the inhabitants, 'that it is much in their hearts (if they may be permitted) to hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may stand, and be _best maintained, and that among English subjects with full liberty_ in religious concernments, and that true piety, rightly grounded upon Gospel principles, will give the least and greatest security to sovereignty,' proceeds to declare: "'We being willing to encourage the hopeful undertaking of our said loyal and loving subjects, and to secure them in the free exercise of all their civil and religious rights appertaining to them as our loving subjects, and to preserve to them that liberty in the true Christian faith and worship of God which they have sought with so much travail and with peaceful minds and loyal subjection to our progenitors and ourselves to enjoy; and because some of the people and inhabitants of the same colony cannot, in their private opinion, conform to the public exercise of religion according to the liturgy, form, and ceremonies of the Church of England, or take or subscribe to the oaths and articles made and established in that behalf; and for that the same, by reason of the remote distances of these places, will, as we hope, be no breach of the unity and uniformity established in this nation, have therefore thought fit, and do hereby publicly grant and ordain and declare, that our royal will and pleasure is, that _no person within the said colony_, at any time hereafter, shall be any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any differences in opinion on matters of religion, but that all and every person and persons may, from time to time, and at all times hereafter, freely and fully have and enjoy his and their own judgment and conveniences in matters of religious concernment throughout the tract of land hereafter mentioned, they behaving themselves peaceably and quietly, and not using this liberty to licentiousness and profaneness, nor to the civil injury or outward disturbance of others.'" (Hazard's Collection, p.