As a body, the Pilgrims were full of courage, and their faith at all times bubbled over into song or into prayer. “We here enjoy God and Jesus Christ,” wrote Winthrop to his wife, whom sickness had detained in England, “and is not that enough? I thank God I like so well to be here as not to repent coming. I would not have altered my course, though I had foreseen all these afflictions. I never had more content of mind.”[712] Before such a spirit—the right spirit—all obstacles were certain to succumb. It was sure to ——“sway the future, While God stood behind the shadow, Keeping watch above his own.” CHAPTER XXIV. THE CHARTER POLITY. “And then we’ll raise, on these wild shores, A structure of wise government, and show In our New World a glorious spectacle Of social order.” MRS. HALE’S _Ormond Grosvenor_. The fundamental law of the colonies of Massachusetts Bay was the charter, which bore the crown seal. The old parchment contained a permit and a fiat. It gave the corporation the right to enlarge or decrease its numbers at its option, and to establish the terms on which new members should be admitted to its franchises. It decreed that the governor and his assistants should be elected by the suffrages of the Company at large. Every freeman, as the members of the corporation were called, was entitled to vote.[713] On the 3d of August, 1630, at Charlestown, Winthrop convened his assistants, and held the first court under the transferred charter.[714] It was the earliest baby-cry of the provincial government. Administrative functions were at once assumed. Measures were initiated which looked to the support of ministers; the question of wages was adjusted; and an order was issued for the arrest of Thomas Morton,[715] who, through the carelessness of Allerton, the Plymouth agent, had returned to New England, and once more “hied to his old nest” at Merry-mount, only to renew his godless pranks.[716] “Such was the first colonial legislation, and such the first legislative body. No heralds, no wigs, no cannon, no gilding, were necessary to impose upon the senses or give majesty and authority to law.”