" [Footnote: Hutch.
Coll., Prince Soc. ed. ii. 101-103.]
However judicious these reforms may have been, or howsoever strictly they
conformed with the spirit of English law, was immaterial. They struck at
the root of the secular power of the clergy, and they roused deep
indignation. The agents had braved no little danger, and had shown no
little skill in behalf of the commonwealth; and the fate of John Norton
enables us to realize the rancor of theological feeling. The successor of
Cotton, by general consent the leading minister, in some respects the most
eminent man in Massachusetts, he had undertaken a difficult mission
against his will, in which he had acquitted himself well; yet on his
return he was so treated by his brethren and friends that he died in the
spring of a broken heart. [Footnote: April 5, 1663.]
The General Court took no notice of the king's demands except to order the
writs to run in the royal name. [Footnote: Oct. 8, 1662. _Mass. Rec._
vol. iv. pt. 2, p. 58.] And it is a sign of the boldness, or else of the
indiscretion, of those in power, that this crisis was chosen for striking
a new coin, [Footnote: 1662, May 7.]--an act confessedly illegal and
certain to give offence in England, both as an assumption of sovereignty
and an interference with the currency.
From the first Lord Clarendon paid some attention to colonial affairs, and
he appears to have been much dissatisfied with the condition in which he
found them.
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