.. had not
power to put men to death ... that for himself he had neither horn nor
hoofe of his own, nor anything wherewith to buy his children cloaths ...
if he must pay the fine he would pay it in books, but that he knew not for
what they were fined, unlesse it were for petitioning: and if they were so
waspish they might not be petitioned, then he could not tell what to say."
[Footnote: _New Eng. Jonas_, Marvin's ed. p. 5.]
Unluckily for Mr. Hubbert he had taken the popular side in this dispute
and had thus been sundered from his brethren, who sustained Winthrop, and
in the end carried him through in triumph; and not only this, but he was
suspected of Presbyterian tendencies, and a committee of the elders who
had visited Hingham to reconcile some differences in the congregation had
found him in grave fault. The government was not sorry, therefore, to make
him a public example, as appeared not only by these proceedings, but by
the way he was treated in the General Court the next autumn. He was
accordingly indicted for sedition, tried and convicted in June, fined
twenty pounds, and bound over to good behavior in forty pounds more.
[Footnote: _New Eng. Jonas_, p. 6., 2 June, 1646.] Such a disturbance
as this seems to have been all that was needed to bring the latent
discontent to a focus.
William Vassal had been an original patentee and was a member of the first
Board of Assistants, who were appointed by the king.
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