Questions propounded to the ministers by the depu

ties.

Qu. 1. Whether the Governor and Assistants have any power, by Patent, to dispense justice in the vacancy of the General Court, without some law or order of the same to declare the rule?

Ans. They answer negatively; and further, they conceive it meet the rule should be express for the regulating all particulars, as far as may be, and where such cannot be had, to be supplied by general rules.

Qu. 2. Whether any General Court hath not power by Patent, in particular cases, to choose any commissioners, (either Assistants or freemen,) exempting all others, and to give them commission to set forth their power and places? By any particular case' they mean in all things, and in the choice of all officers, that the country stands in need of, between election and election; not taking away the people's liberty in elections, nor turning out any officer so elected by them, without showing any cause.

Ans. 1. If the terms all things' imply or intend all cases of constant judicature and counsel, we answer negatively, &c., because then it would follow that the magistrates might be excluded from all cases of constant judicature and counsel, which is their proper and principal work, whereby also the end of the people's election would be frustrate.

2. But if these terms all things' imply, or intend, cases (whether occasional or others) belonging neither to constant judicature nor counsel, we answer affimatively, &c., which yet we understand with this distinction, viz. that if the affairs committed to such officers and commissioners be of general concernment, we conceive the freemen, according to Patent, are to choose them, the General Court to set forth their powers and places. Whereas we give cases of constant judicature and counsel to the magistrates we thus interpret the word 'counsel.' Counsel consists of care and action. In respect of care the magistrates are not limited. In respect of action they are to be limited by the General Court, or by the supreme Council.

1 I have ventured to substitute this word for caution in the MS., as the latter makes no sense at all.-H.

Finally, it is our humble request that in case any difference grow in the General Court, between magistrates and deputies, either in these or any other cases, which cannot presently be issued with mutual peace, that both parties will please to defer the same to further deliberation, for the honor of God and of the Court.

Upon other propositions, made by the deputies, the ministers gave this further answer, viz.

That the General Court, consisting of magistrates and deputies, is the chief civil power of this country, and may act in all things belonging to such a power, both concerning counsel, and in consulting about the weighty affairs of the country, and concerning making of laws, and concerning judicature, in orderly impeaching and sentencing any officers, even the highest, according to law, likewise in receiving appeals, whether touching civil or criminal cases, wherein appeals are, or shall be, allowed by the General Court, (provided that all such appeals proceed orderly from inferior courts to the Court of Assistants, and from thence to the General Court, or, if the case [were] there first depending in the Court of Assistants, then to proceed from thence to the General Court,) in all such cases as are appealable, "as in cases evidently against law, or in cases wherein the subject is sentenced to banishment, or loss of limb, or life, without any express law, or in cases weighty and difficult, (not admitting small matters, the pursuit whereof would be more burdensome to the Court and country, than behoofful to the appellant, nor needlessly interrupting the ordinary course of justice, in the Court of Assistants, or other inferior Courts;) provided also, that if it do appear that the appeal proceed not out of regard of right, but from delay of justice, and out of contention, that a due and just punishment be by law ordained and inflicted on such appellant;" that no magistrate have power to vary from the penalty of any law, &c., without consulting with the General Court.

Qu. 3. Whether the titles of Governor, Deputy, and Assistants do necessarily imply magistratical authority, in the Patent ?

Ans. The ministers' answer was affirmative.

Qu. 4. Whether the magistrates' power be not given by the Patent to the people, or General Court, and by them to the Governor and Assistants?

Ans. The magistrates' power is given to the Governor, &c., by the Patent; to the people is given, by the same Patent, to design the persons to those places of government; and to the General Court power is given to make laws, as the rules of their administration.

These resolutions of the ministers were after put to vote, and were all allowed to be received, except the last clause, in answer to the second question.

Most of the deputies were now well satisfied concerning the authority of the magistrates, &c., but some few leading men (who had drawn on the rest) were still fixed upon their own opinions; so hard it is to draw men (though wise and godly) from the love of the fruit of their own inventions.

Mr. Winthrop, at this time Deputy Governor, having formerly, and from time to time, opposed the deputies' claim of judicial authority, and the prescribing of set penalties in cases which may admit variable degrees of guilt, occasioned some to suspect that he, and some other of the magistrates, did affect an arbitrary government. He now wrote a small treatise of that point, showing what arbitrary government was, and that the government (in the state it now stood) was not arbitrary, neither in the ground and foundation of it, nor in the exercise and administration thereof, which tended much to the satisfaction of them that desired distinctly to understand the nature of these things.

CHAP. XLVII.1

Troubles occasioned to the Massachusetts inhabitants by one Samuel Gorton, and his company, all of them notorious Familists.

Two Indian sachems having submitted themselves to the government of the Massachusetts, for fear of the

'Originally XLVI in the MS.-H.

VOL. VI. SECOND SERIES.

• Pumham and Sacononoco.-H.

9

Narrhagansets, their more potent neighbors, and that they might be protected from the injuries of some vagabond English, (as they are called in Sir Ferdinando Gorges's History of New England, page 38,) were, after that submission of theirs, many ways molested by the said English, which occasioned much trouble to themselves, as well as to the Massachusetts, and the other English Plantations round about them. This disturbance happened in the year 1643. The evil consequences of which continued some years, and occasioned, as well the death of Miantonimo, the great sachem of the Narrhagansets, as the ruin of their own estates.

The ringleader of those English at Providence was one Samuel Gorton, (as saith Mr. Cotton, in the Bloody Tenet Washed, page 5 and 6,) a citizen of London, a man of an haughty spirit, and very heretical principles, a prodigious minter of exorbitant novelties, even the very dregs of Familism. He arrived first at Boston, in the year 1636, and continued a while there, till a reverend minister of London (Mr. Walker) sent over directions to some friends to demand an hundred pound debt of him, which he having borrowed of a citizen, the citizen bequeathed it to some good use, whereof Mr. Walker was called to some trust. But when Gorton departed out of this jurisdiction to Plymouth, and there beginning to spread some of his opinions, to the disturbance of the church, and fearing disturbance to himself, and because he could not procure sufficient bail for his good abearing in the place, he came to Rhode Island,' and there, raising some seditious opposition against the magistrates, he met with public correction. From thence, therefore, he went to Providence, the place where Mr. Roger Williams and his friends had sat down, and there abusing the poor Indians, by taking away their lands, and some English there that had submitted to the Massachusetts, they complained to the Massachusetts, (to whom they had submitted themselves,) of that and other injuries, which they had sustained. The Court of the Massachusetts sent over to Gorton and his company to come down, and

suffered

He was admitted an inhabitant, June 20, 1638.-H. 2 Before Nov. 17, 1641, says Mackie's Life of Gorton.-H. See Sav. Win. й. 59,

84, 120-3.-H. * In September, 1643. Ibid. 137.—H.

shew what right they had to those lands, which they had taken from those Indians, their subjects. But Gorton and his company, instead of coming or sending any to clear their right, sent two books,' written by some of themselves, full of vile heresies and malignant blasphemies against Christ, and against his churches, his ministers, ordinances, and magistrates; yet withal offered that, if they would send their agents over unto them, they would clear their right to the land, which they took from the Indians. The Court therefore sent over some with commission to treat with them, and because Gorton had threatened the former messengers with the offer of some violence, they sent as many armed men with these as might secure their agents from injury; and, in case they refused to shew the right and equity of their cause, then to bring some of the principal of them by strong hand to clear it here. When hither they were come, Gorton desired to speak his mind freely, which being granted, he held it forth, as the mind of himself and his company, that Christ was incarnate when Adam was made after God's image, for God had but one image, and that image was Christ, and this making of Adam in that image was the exinanition of Christ. But when it was objected, that that exinanition of Christ was unto life in Adam, but Christ was to suffer exinanition unto death, he answered, that Christ died when the image of God died, and the image of God died in Adam's fall. But when it was further objected, that Christ's death was the purchase and price of our redemption, but the fall of Adam was not the price of our redemption, but the cause of our condemnation, he stopped, having nothing to reply, and yet would not revoke his hellish blasphemy. This being all the satisfaction [which] was like to be had of this Gorton and his companions, after all their insolencies and injuries, they were detained for a time about Boston, at several towns, whither they were sent, and where they had more civil entertainment than they deserved, all the time of their continuance there; yet were very forward in any public assembly, where they came, to be venting of

1 Letters, says Winthrop.-H. * Captain George Cook, Captain Edward Johnson, and Lieutenant Humphrey Atherton, with forty soldiers.—H.