.. to receive their crjes...," [Footnote: _Mass. Rec._ vol.
iv. pt. 2, p. 129.] And he was implored to reflect on the affliction
of heart it was to them, that their sins had provoked God to permit their
adversaries to procure a commission, under the great seal, to four persons
to hear appeals. When this address reached London it caused surprise. The
chancellor was annoyed. He wrote to America, pointing out that His Majesty
would hardly think himself well used at complaints before a beginning had
been made, and a demand that his commission should be revoked before his
commissioners had been able to deliver their instructions. "I know," he
said, "they are expressly inhibited from intermedling with, or instructing
the administration of justice, according to the formes observed there; but
if in truth, in any extraordinary case, the proceedings there have been
irregular, and against the rules of justice, as some particular cases,
particularly recommended to them by His Majesty, seeme to be, it cannot be
presumed that His Majesty hath or will leave his subjects of New England,
without hope of redresse by an appeale to him, which his subjects of all
his other kingdomes have free liberty to make." [Footnote: Hutch. _Hist._
i. 465.]
The campaign against New York was short and successful, and the
commissioners were soon at leisure.
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