"Whereas I, Thomas Millerd, have given out most false and reproachful speeches against his majesty's loyal and faithful subjects, dwelling in the Massachusetts Bay in America, saying that they were all traitors and rebels, and that I would affirm so much before the governor himself, which expressions I do confess (and so desire may be conceived) did proceed from the rashness and distemper of my own brain, without any just ground or cause so to think or speak, for which my unworthy and sinful carriage being called in question, I do justly stand committed. My humble request, therefore, is that, upon this my full and ingenuous recantation of this my gross failing, it would please the governor and the rest of the assistants to accept of this my humble submission, to pass by my fault, and to dismiss me from further trouble; and this, my free and voluntary confession, I subscribe with my hand, this 9th June, 1686." We now resume our extract from Winthrop. "Then the governor desired the masters that they would deal freely, and tell us, if they did take any offence, and what they required of us. They answered, that in regard they should be examined upon their return, what colors they saw here; they did desire that the king's colors might be spread at our fort. It was answered, we had not the king's colors. Thereupon, two of them did offer them freely to us." This was about June, 1636, and we have seen that it was only in the year 1635, that the commissioners for military affairs had ordered the red cross ensigns to be laid aside; hence, it is altogether improbable that they could not have procured one of these, but, what we have styled the king's colors _par excellence_, being prescribed only for ships, was not likely to be owned by the colonial authorities. Its device, a modification of the cross, about which the question had arisen, might possibly have served as a device to relieve the tenderness of the consciences of the authorities, and would also enable the masters to say, on their return, that they had seen the king's colors spread at the castle at Boston.