42 HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN

c n A p. lecturers were all of them puritanically affected;in. and from them the clergymen, who contented

1037. themselves with reading prayers and homilies to

the people, commonly received the reproachfulappellation of dumb'dogs.

The puritans, restrained in England, shippedthemselves off for America, and laid there thefoundations of a government, which possessedall the liberty, both civil and religious, of whichthey found themselves bereaved in their nativecountry. But their enemies, unwilling that they 1should any where enjoy ease and contentment, |and dreading, perhaps, the dangerous consequen-ces of so disaffected a colony , prevailed on theking to issue a proclamation, debarring thesedevotees access even into those inhospitable de-serts 7 °. Eight ships, N lying in the Thames, andready to fail, were detained by order of thecouncil; and in these were embarked Sir Arthur IHazclrig, John Hambden , John Pym, and OliverCromwel " , who had resolved for ever toabandon their native country , and fly to theother extremity of the globe; where they might

" Rufhworth, vol. ^i. p. 409. 418-TI Mather’s History of New England, book i. Dugdale.Bates. Hutchinson’s Hist. of Mastachufet’s Bay, vol. i. p.

42. This last quoted author puts the fact beyond contro-versy. And it is a curious fact, as well with regard tothe characters of the men , as of the times. Can any onedoubt, that the ensuing quarrel was almost entirely the-ological not political ? What might be expected of thepopulace, when such was the character of the most en-lightened leaders ?