and decision were on the other side. In that crisis of affairs, Parliament sent commissioners to Scotland, with ample powers to treat for a nearer union and confederacy. These were the Earl of Rutland, Sir William Armyne, Harry Vane, Thomas Hatcher, and Henry Darley; attended by Philip Nye, and Stephen Marshall, whose daughter Nye had married. It was, however, upon the diplomatic subtlety of Vane, and the great shrewdness of Nye, [both members of the Massachusetts Company,] who was seldom, if ever, outwitted,' that Parliament depended for the success of the mission. When it was ascertained that no conciliation could be effected without an adoption of the Scottish Covenant, Sir Harry Vane contrived to render the bitter alternative more palatable to the English, by inserting phraseology which admitted of double construction. By this means the two houses of Parliament, and the Westminster Assembly of Divines and Laymen, were induced to meet, for the purpose of signifying their concurrence. At this point, we find John White, the minister, [also of the Company,] and Philip Nye, combining their efforts to smooth the way for a disagreeable act of necessity. Mr. White's prayer, an hour in length, and Mr. Nye's introductory speech, are all the ceremonies noticed, before taking the question on a measure that manifestly turned the dubious scale against the king."— Arch. Amer., Vol. III. p. cxxviii.

Two major-generals of the Parliament's army, Brereton and Hewson, were of the Massachusetts Company, and several others of its members were in the service. Stephen Winthrop, who succeeded Harrison in the office of MajorGeneral, was son of our Governor Winthrop; and Robert Sedgwick, who held the same office under Cromwell, was a Charlestown man. He was with Governor Winslow of Plymouth in the commission of three which Cromwell sent with his unsuccessful enterprise against the Spanish West Indies. Leverett, afterwards Governor of Massachusetts, had been a captain under Cromwell, having returned to England after some years spent in this country.

It is not merely true, then, as has been often suggested, that the New-Englanders found their Colonies and themselves patronized by the new government. They and their old associates belonged to the very class of men, and were the very men themselves, who had made the new government. It was therefore quite a matter of course that emigration from the old motive should end suddenly with the success of the Par

liament. It was quite a matter of course, that, when, in 1642, Harvard College sent out its first sons, most of them, even before the success of the Parliamentary struggle, should return to the home where their friends were men of influence. It was quite a matter of course that Cromwell should always regard the Colonies with favor. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say, that from the time when Henry VII. gave John Cabot ten pounds because he had discovered the New World, down to the time when George III., his great-greatgranddaughter's great-great-grandson, succeeded in alienating his North American Colonies, and throwing them away, Cromwell was the only sovereign of England who appreciated the importance of her American possessions.

The gallantry of the Colonial government, considering its extreme weakness, in tendering its support to the Parliament, is, indeed, almost pathetic.

"Whereas," says the Record, "the civil warrs and dissentions in our native country, through the seditious words and carriages of many evill affected persons, cause divisions in many places of government in America, some professing themselues for the king, and others for the Parliament, not considering that the Parliament themselues professe that they stand for the king and Parliament against the malignant Papists and delinquents in that kingdome, it is therefore ordered, that what person soever shall, by word, writing, or action, endeavor to disturbe our peace, directly or indirectly, by drawing a party, under pretence that he is for the king of England, and such as adioyne with him, against the Parliament, shalbe accounted as an offender of an high nature against this common wealth, and to be proceeded with either capitally or otherwise, according to the quality and degree of his offence; provided alwayes, that this shall not be extended against any marchant, strangers, and shipmen that come hither meerly for matter of trade and marchandize, albeit they should come from any of those ports that are in the hands of the king, and such as adhere to them against the Parliament, carriing themselues here quietly, and free from raising or nurishing any faction, mutiny, or sedition amongst us, as aforesaid.” – Col. Rec., Vol. II. p. 69.

This was on May 29, 1644, at which session the General Court put its arrangements for defence or offence upon a more scientific footing than they had before rested on. Major-General Dudley was commissioned to command the army of the

little commonwealth. Dudley had learned the military art under so distinguished a leader as Henry IV. of France. Thus singularly do the names and the influence of the leading characters of the Old World appear in the early annals of the New. In the Records, we think we find a desire to veil the various military preparations under more talk of the Indians than there was real necessity of. There was no naval power except that of the king of England, which, in 1644, the Colony had immediate reason to fear. So highly did Cromwell appreciate the Colony's sympathy, that, while the other plantations, Virginia, Maryland, and the Bermudas, were compelled to submit to the provisions of the Navigation Act, to receive all their imports in English ships, and to ship all their exports to England or her colonies, the New England colonies retained their old freedom of trade, and were permitted to do so, simply, it would appear, by special favor of Cromwell and the Parliament.

Indeed, the Colony's loyalty to the Commonwealth was much more demonstrative than had ever been its loyalty to the king. Sir Ferdinando Gorges had very early intimated that the intention of its leaders was to set up for themselves. They never avowed this intention publicly, and probably scarcely did in private. But without distinct avowal of it, they were no doubt constantly looking at the possibility or the necessity of an independent state. There is scarcely an allusion to the home government in the Records before the outbreaking of the civil war. Such allusion as there is, is anything but loyal. The difficulty about using the cross in the standards borne by the troops is an instance. The Commonwealth's men afterwards bore the cross in their standards, and stamped it upon their coin. But Roger Williams and Endicott cut it out of the ensigns here, as idolatrous; and though the General Court professed to reprove them, yet it appears from Winthrop, that the matter was adjusted, in 1635, by a vote not to use the ensign at all. In fact, in Vane's administration, when it had been agreed, after long discussion, that the colors should be shown on the fort, the Colony had no colors to show, a remarkable position for a British colony in the sixth year of its existence.

Another instance where the home government is alluded to during this period, though not named in the Records, is in the preparations for fortifying the seaports in 1634, in the fourth year of the Colony. The Records do not speak of the naval enemy feared. Undoubtedly, there were reasons for fortification in the neighborhood of the dissatisfied French in Nova Scotia. But it is to be remarked, at the same time, that a rumor had just come that an English Governor-General for the Colonies was to be appointed. The magistrates had taken advice of the ministers, and appear to have acquiesced in their decision, which was, that "if a General Governor were sent, we ought not to accept him, but defend our lawful possessions if we were able, otherwise to avoid or protract." Hutchinson suggests, indeed, in his history of the next year, 1635, when Vane came over, and, as he thought, Pym, Hampden, Haslerigg, and Cromwell meant to come, that the Royalist party in England then would not have been sorry "to have been rid of the heads of what was deemed a faction in government, and to have had no further connection with them." Be this as it may, the success of that faction in England was the confirmation of the loyalty to England of the Colony here. It had never been loud in professions of loyalty to Charles, nor had it any reason for being so.

There is not much, it is true, which can be quoted from the Records, to substantiate the impression that the Colonists cared little for the royal government, and were very glad to keep out of its notice and out of its way. But the very fact that there is next to nothing about that government is remarkable. That, in the infancy of their enterprise, they make no appeal to it at all, is important, though indefinite, testimony. The whole legislation is that of a state which had complete powers within itself. No favor, no aid, is asked of the government at home. The Governor and Assistants, in the first forms of the oaths, are sworn to be faithful to King Charles; but he is not mentioned in any of the oaths of other offices. And it now appears, that in the form drawn up in 1643, as soon as the civil war began, the oath of allegiance to the king was omitted even in those instances. This was long before allegiance to the king was omitted from any similar oaths in England. In

deed, almost the only other allusion to the king, in the first twelve years, is the half-way compliment of an order, in 1636, six years after the settlement, that "the Kings majesties armes shall be erected in all places of judicature soe soon as they can be hadd."

In this view of the relations of the Colony, we see nothing improbable in the story, repeated by most of the older writers, that in 1636, 1637, or 1638, Hampden, Haslerigg, Pym, and Cromwell proposed to join it. There is no doubt that their associate, Rowe, did. Mr. Bancroft rejects the story, because it has no Puritan authorities in its support, and because it argues a desertion of the good cause by those men. This latter view cannot be sustained, if, in their minds and in the minds of its leaders, the ultimate prosperity of the Colony was regarded as quite independent of the favor of the king.

In 1643, the House of Commons passed the statute under which the Colony enjoyed free trade with the mother country, with a decided compliment to the value of the Colony to England.

Our limits do not permit us to extend these illustrations of the unusually close connection of the rulers and politics of the two commonwealths. It seldom happens that the same body of political experimenters have the opportunity to test their principles in two fields. The Puritans were thus favored. They had started Massachusetts well, when Providence gave them a chance to try their skill in England. In the larger experiment, after magnificent successes, they were swept away at last, by the latent power of English conservatism, to make room for rulers as manly, as religious, as skilful in statesmanship, and exhibiting such divine right to rule, as Charles II. and his brother James. In Massachusetts, the little experiment, they were more successful. When, a few years ago, the English Parliament, in ordering that the statues of the sovereigns of England should be set up in its new palace, thought fit to omit the statue of Cromwell, - that sovereign to whom England owes it that she ever ruled the seas, could not but think that it would be a fit memorial of the services which that great man rendered to the men of Massachusetts, and which the men of Massachusetts rendered to him,

we