Under the impulse and guidance of violent counsels they chose the latter, and lost their Charter.

In their very last address to the King, they gratefully acknowledged his kindness in all his despatches and treatment of them, contrary to the statements and imputations of modern New England historians; yet they denied him the authority universally acknowledged and exercised by Queen Victoria and English Courts of law over the legislative, judicial, and even administrative acts of every province of the British Empire.

Dr.Palfrey says: "In the Upper branch of the Government there was found at length a _servile_ majority;" but "the deputies were prepared for no such _suicide_, though there were not wanting faint hearts and grovelling aims among them."[192] At the head of what Dr.Palfrey terms the "servile majority" was the venerable Governor Bradstreet, now more than ninety years of age, the only survivor of the original founders of the colony, who had been a magistrate more than fifty years, more than once Governor, always a faithful and safe counsellor, the agent of the colony in England, and obtaining in June, 1662, the King's letter of pardon--oblivion of the past and promised continuance of the Charter on certain conditions--a letter which the Colonial Court said filled them with inexpressible joy and gratitude (see above, page 141), who then advised them to comply with the King's requirements, and who, after twenty years' further experience and knowledge of public affairs and parties, advises them to pursue the same course for which he is now termed "servile," and ranked with cowards and men of "grovelling aims," advising the colony to commit political "suicide." The result showed who were the real authors of the "suicide," and Dr.Palfrey forcibly states the result of their doings in the following words: "Massachusetts, as a body politic, was now no more.

The elaborate fabric, that had been fifty-four years in building, was levelled to the dust.

The hopes of the fathers were found to be mere dreams.