Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/58

20 New England and the Restoration. [1660-4 fled, first to Connecticut and then to New Haven. Orders came for their arrest. The governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut were diplomatic enough to comply formally while they gave no real help. The governor of New Haven was less dexterous. He succeeded in keeping the secret of the regicides' escape, but the nature and manner of his answer betrayed his complicity. The fugitives themselves lived out their days in hiding, unmolested. New Haven paid dearly for loyalty to its principles. In 1661 the younger John Winthrop, governor of Connecticut, went to England to obtain a charter for his colony. He had little of his father's definiteness or force of character, but he was genial and attractive, a man of varied interests, able to commend himself to those who differed widely from him in religious and political views. He succeeded in obtaining for his colony a charter of singular liberality, which confirmed the existing system of government by governor, assistants and deputies. But the most important point in the charter was the grant of territory. Like the majority of such documents, the grant was confused in its terms, but one thing was clear; it was meant to include New Haven, and the government of Connecticut intended to enforce that view. One town, Southold, at once accepted the new jurisdiction : elsewhere parties were divided. The government of New Haven protested and for a while held out; and the federal commissioners supported them in their protest. But the determination of Connecticut, backed by the home government, was too strong; and after three years of bickering the union was accepted. One township alone, Branford, stood out ; and its inhabitants emigrated in a body into the unoccupied territory near the Delaware, bearing with them their civil and ecclesiastical records. In 1663 Rhode Island ob- tained from the Crown the same favour that had been granted to Con- necticut, a charter defining their boundaries and confirming their form of government. The Restoration gave, as might have been expected, the signal for a series of attacks on Massachusetts on the part of those many enemies whom she had made alike by her merits and her errors. The Quakers appeared at first to have won a crowning triumph. A reprimand to Massachusetts for their treatment was sent by the King and entrusted for delivery to one who had himself been scourged and banished, with the result that all Quaker prisoners were released. In the next year the Court of Massachusetts drew up a manifesto at once elaborate in substance and temperate in tone, tracing the whole of their existing political system to their original charter. This was so far successful that the charter was confirmed, though with the restriction that the franchise should be granted irrespective of religious opinion. The necessity of "a sharp law" against the Quakers was admitted. At the same time the representatives and namesakes of Gorges and Mason were endeavouring, by petition to the Privy Council, to reassert