“Thirdly, if you look at the effects of his doctrine upon the hearers, it hath not stirred up sedition in us, not so much as by accident; wee have not drawn the sword, as sometimes Peter did, rashly, neither have wee rescued our innocent brother, as sometimes the Israelites did Jonathan, and yet they did not seditiously. The covenant of free grace held forth by our brother hath taught us rather to become humble suppliants to your worships, and if wee should not prevaile, wee would rather with patience give our cheekes to the smiters.” [Footnote: _Idem_.] The liberal feeling ran so strongly in Boston that the conservatives thought it prudent to remove the government temporarily to Cambridge, that they might more easily control the election which was to come in May. Vane, with some petulance, refused to entertain the motion; but Endicott put the question, and it was carried. As the time drew near the excitement increased, the clergy straining every nerve to bring up their voters from the country; and on the morning of the day the feeling was so intense that the Rev. Mr. Wilson, forgetting his dignity and his age, scrambled up a tree and harangued the people from its branches. [Footnote: Hutch. _Hist_. i. 62, note.] Yet, though the freemen were so deeply moved, there was no violence, and Winthrop was peaceably elected governor, with a strong conservative majority in the legislature. It so happened that just at this time a number of the friends of Wheelwright and the Hutchinsons were on their way from England to settle in Massachusetts. The first act of the new government was to exclude these new-comers by passing a law forbidding any town to entertain strangers for more than three weeks without the consent of two of the magistrates. This oppressive statute caused such discontent that Winthrop thought it necessary to publish a defence, to which Vane replied and Winthrop rejoined. The controversy would long since have lost its interest had it not been for the theory then first advanced by Winthrop, that the corporation of Massachusetts, having bought its land, held it as though it were a private estate, and might exclude whom they pleased therefrom; and ever since this plea has been set up in justification of every excess committed by the theocracy. Winthrop was a lawyer, and it is but justice to his reputation to presume that he spoke as a partisan, knowing his argument to be fallacious. As a legal proposition he must have been aware that it was unsound. Although during the reign of Charles I. monopolies were a standing grievance with the House of Commons, yet they had been granted and enforced for centuries; and had Massachusetts claimed the right to exclude strangers as interlopers in trade, she would have stood upon good precedent. Such, however, was not her contention. The legislation against the friends of Wheelwright was passed avowedly upon grounds of religious difference of opinion, and a monopoly in religion was unknown.