Gorton now went to England and laid his tale of woe before the parliamentary Board of Commissioners.  The Earl of Warwick behaved with moderation.  He declined to commit himself to an opinion as to the merits of the quarrel, but Gorton’s title to Shawomet was confirmed.  He returned to Boston with an order to the government to allow him to pass unmolested through Massachusetts, and hereafter to protect him in the possession of Shawomet.  If this little commonwealth of 15,000 inhabitants had been a nation as powerful as France, she could not have treated the message more haughtily.  By a majority of one vote it was decided not to refuse so trifling a favour as a passage through the country for just this once; but as for protecting the new town of Warwick which the Gortonites proceeded to found at Shawomet, although it was several times threatened by the Indians, and the settlers appealed to the parliamentary order, that order Massachusetts flatly and doggedly refused to obey. [21] [Sidenote:  Gorton appeals to Parliament]

In the discussions of which these years were so full, “King Winthrop,” as his enemy Morton called him, used some very significant language.  By a curious legal fiction of the Massachusetts charter the colonists were supposed to hold their land as in the manor of East Greenwich near London, and it was argued that they were represented in Parliament by the members of the county or borough which contained that manor, and were accordingly subject to the jurisdiction of Parliament.  It was further argued that since the king had no absolute sovereignty independent of Parliament he could not by charter impart any such independent sovereignty to others.  Winthrop did not dispute these points, but observed that the safety of the commonwealth was the supreme law, and if in the interests of that safety it should be found necessary to renounce the authority of Parliament, the colonists would be justified in doing so. [Sidenote:  Winthrop’s prophetic opinion] [22] This was essentially the same doctrine as was set forth ninety-nine years later by young Samuel Adams in his Commencement Oration at Harvard.

The case of the Presbyterian cabal admits of briefer treatment than that of Gorton.  There had now come to be many persons in Massachusetts who disapproved of the provision which restricted the suffrage to members of the Independent or Congregational churches of New England, and in 1646 the views of these people were presented in a petition to the General Court.  The petitioners asked “that their civil disabilities might be removed, and that all members of the churches of England and Scotland might be admitted to communion with the New England churches.  If this could not be granted they prayed to be released from all civil burdens.  Should the court refuse to entertain their complaint, they would be obliged to bring their case before Parliament.” [23] The leading signers of this menacing petition were William Vassall, Samuel