Two years later, however, in connection with the Dr. Child petition, and the order of the English Commissioners concerning Samuel Gorton, the local aspects of which have been discussed in a previous chapter, the General Court undertook to define the colony's relations to England more definitely. While there was some difference of opinion, the majority of the magistrates and of the clergy consulted took the stand that by the charter they had “absolute power of government,” with authority to “make laws, to erect all sorts of magistracy, to correct, punish, pardon, govern, and rule the people absolutely,” without the interposition of any superior power. They denied that any appeal lay against any of their proceedings, or that they were bound, “further than in a way of justification,” to make answer to any complaints against them in England. They drew a distinction between corporations within England and those without, asserted that plantations were above the rank of ordinary corporations, and added that “our allegiance binds us not to the laws of England any longer than while we live in England, for the laws of the parliament of England reach no further, nor do the King's writs under the great seal.” They did, indeed, acknowledge some sort of shadowy and undefined allegiance, and claimed protection by the mother-country as a right.[765] Footnote 765: J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 341, 345, 354, _f._, 352. This theory of virtual independence was reasserted by the Court in the year following the Restoration, with the addition that they conceived that “any imposition prejudicial to the country, contrary to any just law” not repugnant to the laws of England, was an infringement of their rights, and that the colony was privileged to defend itself, even by force of arms, against any who should attempt its “destruction, invasion, detriment or annoyance.”[766] The duties of allegiance were defined somewhat more exactly than they had been fifteen years earlier, and somewhat differently; but any sovereign rights of the English government over its dependencies in the Empire were denied.[767] More and more, not merely in theory, but in the form that the colony's negotiations took with the home authorities through its agents, it was endeavoring to assume the position, not of an integral part of an empire, but of an allied sovereign power. Footnote 766: _Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, p. 25. Footnote 767: Kaye, _English Colonial Administration under Clarendon_, p. 142.