The country at length grew uneasy at these proceedings; were suspicious that the general court had effected arbitrary government; and earnestly expected a body of laws to aid and protect them in all their just rights and previleges[19]. It was the more necessary to comply with the prevailing expectation, for the business had been long in agitation: not only so, but a great majority of the inhabitants were not freemen not being members of the congregational churches, or declining to take up their freedom, in order to secure an exemption from serving in civil offices. It was not till 1648 that the body of laws was digested and printed. The conduct of the colony on the one hand, and the inveteracy of the English administration on the other, would certainly have produced a revocation of the charter, and probably the ruin of the plantation, had not the disturbances in England prevented. It became a favorite upon the change that followed them; and while _Oliver Cromwell_ ruled, met with the utmost indulgence. From 1640 to 1660 it approached very near to an independent commonwealth[20]. The house of commons in a memorable resolve of the 10th of March 1642, passed in favour of it, gives _New-England_ the title of _kingdom_[21]. The commissioners for _New-England_, sent over by king _Charles_ II. assert in their narrative[22], that the colony solicited _Cromwell_ to be declared a free state, which is not unlikely. It has been already mentioned, that all the persons passing over to the _Massachusetts_ did not confine themselves to that colony.