With these documents and one thousand pounds for bribery, soon after increased to three, [Footnote: Chalmers’s _Annals_, p. 461.] Dudley and Richards sailed. Their powers were at once rejected at London as insufficient, and the decisive moment came. [Footnote: _Idem_, p. 413.] The churchmen of Massachusetts had to determine whether to accept the secularization of their government or abandon every guaranty of popular liberty. The clergy did not hesitate before the momentous alternative: they exerted themselves to the utmost, and turned the scale for the last time. [Footnote: Hutch. _Hist._ i. 303, note.] In fresh instructions the agents were urged to do what was possible to avert, or at least delay, the stroke; but they were forbidden to consent to appeals, or to alterations in the qualifications required for the admission of freemen. [Footnote: 1683, March 30. _Mass. Rec._ v. 390.] They had previously been directed to pacify the king by a present of two thousand pounds; and this ill-judged attempt at bribery had covered them with ridicule. [Footnote: Hutch. _Hist._ i. 303, note.] Further negotiation would have been futile. Proceedings were begun at once, and Randolph was sent to Boston to serve the writ of _quo warranto_; [Footnote: 1683, July 20.] he was also charged with a royal declaration promising that, even then, were submission made, the charter should be restored with only such changes as the public welfare demanded. [Footnote: _Mass. Rec._ v. 422, 423.] Dudley, who was a man of much political sagacity, had returned and strongly urged moderation. The magistrates were not without the instincts of statesmanship: they saw that a breach with England must destroy all safeguards of the common freedom, and they voted an address to the crown accepting the proffered terms. [Footnote: 1683, 15 Nov. Hutch. _Hist._ i. 304.] But the clergy strove against them: the privileges of their order were at stake; they felt that the loss of their importance would be “destructive to the interest of religion and of Christ’s kingdom in the colony,” [Footnote: Palfrey, iii. 381.] and they roused their congregations to resist. The deputies did not represent the people, but the church. They were men who had been trained from infancy by the priests, who had been admitted to the communion and the franchise on account of their religious fervor, and who had been brought into public life because the ecclesiastics found them pliable in their hands. The influence which had moulded their minds and guided their actions controlled them still, and they rejected the address. [Footnote: Nov. 30. Palfrey, iii. 385.] Increase Mather took the lead. He stood up at a great meeting in the Old South, and exhorted the people, “telling them how their forefathers did purchase it [the charter], and would they deliver it up, even as Ahab required Naboth’s vineyard, Oh! their children would be bound to curse them.” [Footnote: Palfrey, iii. 388, note 1.]