Cranfield and Randolph set themselves zealously to their congenial task. The Assembly met for theirs. The Commissioners refused to establish their position by showing their credentials. The Assembly refused to recognize them officially without credentials. The rupture was open and violent. The Assembly appointed new agents to repair to court and lay the evidence in behalf of the Colony before the King. A tax of four hundred pounds was imposed to meet their expenses. Much importance was attached to an address to the King drawn up by Randall Holden and John Greene. Meanwhile the Commissioners on their part were not idle. Cranfield wrote to the Board of Trade that the colonies were disloyal. "It never will be otherwise," he added, "till their charters are broke and the college at Cambridge utterly extirpated, for from thence these half-witted philosophers turn either Atheists or seditious preachers." He was right, for it was at Cambridge that Otis and Quincy and Warren and the two Adamses imbibed the principles which led to independence. It was in 1684, in the midst of these struggles, that a petition of the Jews for protection was presented to the Assembly and granted--Rhode Island remaining true to the last to the principle of her origin. The decision of the Royal Commissioners was unfavorable to Rhode Island, and it is hard to see how she could have escaped mutilation. But she was menaced by a still greater danger. In 1684 Charles the Second died, and his brother James ascended the throne, bringing with him a narrow mind and a bad heart. To establish an arbitrary government and restore the supremacy of the Romish Church were the cardinal points of his policy. The American colonies afforded a favorable field for the trial. It began by the revocation of their charters, and was speedily followed up by putting the government of the New England colonies under one head. Rhode Island found herself where she stood at the beginning, a government of towns. Her original four towns had united under one government for self-defence, and now that they were arbitrarily separated by a power too great to be resisted they naturally fell back upon their original municipal institutions. This closing scene is not without its dignity. The Assembly met at its accustomed time. The Governor, Walter Clarke, solemnly called upon the freemen for counsel. The whole question of dangers and difficulties was discussed, and wisely preferring petition to resistance, it was resolved to address a solemn appeal to the King for the preservation of their charter. Then all returned to its original order. The freemen met and discussed their town interests in their town meetings. Town officers elected by their townsmen performed their accustomed duties. The tradesman and the farmer went on in his chosen calling and the towns throve and prospered, still looking with unwavering trust to a day of redemption. CHAPTER XIV.