"And indeed I did therefore forbeare giueing you an account of a further
time being denyd, and the entry of judgment against you, expecting you
would before such lettre could haue reacht you haue sent me the lettres of
attorney vnder your corporacon seale that the court might haue been moved
to admitt your appearance and plea and waiued the judgment.
"But instead of those lettres of attorney under your seale you sent me an
address to his late majesty, I confess judiciously drawne. But it is my
wonder in which of your capacityes you could imagine it should be
presented to his majesty, for if as a corporacon, a body politique, it
should have been putt under your corporacon seale if as a private comunity
it should haue been signed by your order. But the paper has neither
private hand nor publique seale to it and soe must be lost....
"In this condicon what could a man doe for you, nothing publiquely for he
had noe warrant from you to justify the accon." [Footnote: _Mass.
Archives_, cvi. 343.]
So perished the Puritan Commonwealth. The child of the Reformation, its
life sprang from the assertion of the freedom of the mind; but this great
and noble principle is fatal to the temporal power of a priesthood, and
during the supremacy of the clergy the government was doomed to be both
persecuting and repressive.
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