The ship that conveyed to Boston, in July, the first news of the Restoration, brought with it Whalley and Goffe, two of the regicide judges of Charles II., who now naturally fled to the only portion of the English territories where republicanism might still be tolerated. They were well received by Endicott, the governor, and the tidings which they brought being hardly credited, excited but little attention. Nor was it till the month of November that official information of this great event arrived; of the act of indemnity for all except such as were concerned in the death of Charles I.; of the execution of Peters, and the imprisonment of Vane, together with the information that many complaints of persecution and misdemeanours against the colony were received by parliament and the crown. More unwelcome tidings could hardly have reached Massachusetts; and yet, a general court being summoned, addresses were prepared to the restored monarch very little creditable to the independence and manliness of the colony. They spoke of the execution of Charles very vaguely, and apologetically represented themselves as “his present majesty’s poor Mephibosheths, by reason of lameness in respect of distance, not until now appearing in his presence, kneeling with the rest of his subjects before his majesty as their restored king. They prayed for a continuance, however, of civil and religious liberties; and as regarded the complaints which had been brought against them, they besought the king that he would not hear men’s words, for that his servants were true men, fearing God and the king.” At the same time that this cringing address, and another in the same spirit to parliament, were sent, letters were written to the now aged Lord Say and Seal, and other puritan noblemen who might be supposed to have interest with the new government, to bespeak their favour. Much more creditable than these addresses was the conduct of New England with regard to the fugitive regicides. Before a royal order for their arrest reached Boston, by the hands of a party of royalists, which Massachusetts was required to execute, the offenders had escaped to New Haven. The magistrates assumed an appearance of assiduity, and published a proclamation against them, but no intention existed of giving them up. They were safe, and shortly afterwards were joined by Dixwell, another of the regicide judges; and, spite of all the efforts that were made to arrest them, all three finished their days in New England. Dixwell lived openly, under a feigned name, at New Haven; and the other two in concealment, sometimes in Massachusetts, at other times in Connecticut.