The sturdy and independent spirit of the colonists was expressed in words as well as in deeds. While Winslow was thus representing the colonists in England he made his famous reply to those who were disposed to criticise the formation of the New England confederacy as a presumptuous assertion of independence: "If we in America should forbear to unite for offence and defence against a common enemy till we have leave from England, our throats might be all cut before the messenger would be half seas through." A similar impatience of authority from England was expressed by Governor John Winthrop. An opinion which he delivered about this time betokened the proud and independent attitude of Massachusetts, and was prophetic of the spirit of the Revolution. By a legal fiction, when the king granted land in America it was held as being in the manor of East Greenwich. It was said that the American colonists were represented in that body by the member returned from the borough containing this manor, and were therefore subject to Parliament. Winthrop held, however, that the supreme law in the colonies was the common weal, and should parliamentary authority endanger the welfare of the colonists, then they would be justified in ignoring that authority. Sidenote: The Presbyterians. Religious liberty was quite as dear to the New England people as political liberty. In 1645, under Scottish influence, Presbyterianism was established by Act of Parliament as the state religion of England. Massachusetts was, however, stoutly Independent, and furnished some of the chief champions for that faith during the great controversy which was then raging between the two sects on both sides of the water. A number of Massachusetts Presbyterians sought (1646) to induce the home government to settle churches of their faith in the colonies, and to secure the franchise to all, regardless of religious affiliation; but before they reached England to state their case the Independents were again in the ascendent, and the Puritan theocracy in Massachusetts was undisturbed. Two years later (1648) a synod of churches was held at Cambridge, at which was formulated a church discipline familiarly styled "the Cambridge platform." In it the Westminster Confession was approved, the powers of the clergy defined, the civil power invoked to "coerce" churches which should "walk incorrigibly or obstinately in any corrupt way of their own," and the term "Congregational" established, to distinguish New England orthodoxy from "those corrupt sects and heresies which showed themselves under the vast title of Independency." In 1649 this platform was laid by the General Court before the several congregations, and two years later it was formally agreed to. Sidenote: Encroachments upon Dutch possessions.