Returning now to Massachusetts, against whom not only the Tory party, now in power, but the commercial interests of England were placed in such hostile array, we find a question started which was calculated to shake her to the very centre. Seeing it was impossible to bring her to obedience by any measure which had hitherto been tried, a question was started “as to the legal entity of her charter;” and the crown not being able to deny the validity of the patent, a writ of _quo warranto_, before which the cities and boroughs of England had just yielded, was proposed. The colony beheld the gloomy aspect of the future with sentiments of deep emotion, and again a religious fervour, almost superstitious, possessed all hearts. The most solemn religious observances were adopted; the elders took it again into serious deliberation as to what were the sins of New England for which Heaven visited her with such signal judgments. As before, in the terror of the Indians, the pardonable sins of youthful levity and love of pleasure were looked upon as offensive to God, and still greater austerity of life was imposed. They forgot what, in truth, were the crying sins of the colony—spiritual pride, bigotry and intolerance—the want of charity and mercy, whether to Anabaptists, Quakers, or Indians. The colony, like some sinful city of old, again humbled itself as in sackcloth and ashes, but “the anger of the Lord was not turned aside.” English enactments, in 1678, began to be in force; high treason became a capital offence; the oath of allegiance was required, and the king’s arms were erected in the court-house. The colony, however, wishful to save its charter, was willing to make some concessions; therefore resorting to an expedient which might save their honour, the general court gave validity to the long opposed Navigation Laws by an act of its own. Massachusetts asserted thus the right to govern herself; and Charles, still more exasperated, resolved on her humiliation. A struggle ensued, during which Edward Randolph was twice sent from England to assist in bringing the stiff-necked colony into order. [Illustration: EJECTMENT OF THE SHERIFF BY THE PEOPLE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.] At length, in February, 1682, affairs growing more and more desperate, two agents, fully empowered to act for the colony, were sent over from New England, the prayers of the whole commonwealth accompanying them, not only for their safety, but for the safety of the patent—their great charter of liberty. But they were unsuccessful; perhaps because, to use the phraseology of those times, “the anger of the Lord was against them,” they having, as it appears to us, unworthily, in imitation of France and the whole spirit of the English court, gone with a bribe in their hands.