There never was a law relating either to Churchmen, Baptists, or Quakers, exempting them from paying taxes considered as Proprietors or Grantees in a new plantation. The laws relative to them respect only such rates as are assessed by towns, district, or parish, and this distinction is very material and very rational, and not anti-Christian. The end and design of the grant of waste lands by the General Court is this, that they shall be improved that which was meer nature should be cultivated and improved for the increase of his Majesty's good subjects in this Province, their trade, produce, and business. This is quite agreeable to the design of King William and Queen Mary in their grant of the charter; but how can this be effected when perhaps half in every new granted township refuse complying with the conditions of the grant, pleading conscience, which conditions [one of which was to settle a learned orthodox minister there, and build and finish a convenient meeting-house for the public worship of God] they were perfectly acquainted with when they accepted the grant. In new townships the grantees, when all unite to perform the conditions, go thro' a vast many hardships and encounter a thousand difficulties before the same are performed; to excuse any under any pretence whatsoever, therefore, would be unreasonable and cruel to the rest, if they were obliged to do their own duty and the duty of their delinquent brethren. Is this conscience? Or is it conscience that a man should not be obliged to do what he hath solemnly and voluntarily covenanted to do? Now what other method can be devised, but to sell the lands of those who conscientiously say they will not be as good as their word, or keep their covenant tho' it be so greatly to the prejudice of the public? Is it not more favorable to these delinquents, that part of their land be sold in fulfillment of their engagements than the whole should revert to the Province? which is the very tenure of their grant and by which they hold their lands. Your committee find that in the sale of these lands there was no unfairness, but everything was quite fair, quite neighborly, and quite legal. Upon the whole, your committee, tho' desirous that everything might be done that can be desired for persons of every denomination of Christians whereby they may worship God in their own way and according to their consciences without any let or molestation whatsoever, yet

for the reasons above-mentioned and many more that might be offered, it is our opinion that said Petition be dismissed.

W. BRATTLE, by order.1

In Council, Read and accepted, and Ordered that said Petition be dismissed accordingly.

In the House of Representatives, Read and Non-concurred, and Ordered that . . . shall be a committee to bring in a Bill for repealing and making void an "Act for erecting the new Plantation called Huntstown in the County of Hampshire into a town by the name of Ashfield." In Council, Read and non-concurred.

But his majesty did not agree with the Council in this matter (see p. 178). He probably knew the purport and design of King William's Charter. Governor Hutchinson also showed some favor to the Baptist society after he had "happened to look and find that the word Support was not in the original grant of those lands." This whole Ashfield matter is fully narrated in Vol. II., 149 et seq., of Backus' "History," who moreover avers that the account which he gives is "carefully taken from our printed laws, journals of the House of Representatives, and other writings and, testimonies; and our opponents are welcome to point out any mistakes therein if they can."

VII. THE AGENT'S PETITION TO THE GENERAL COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS.

To the Honorable General Assembly of the Colony. 1 The writer of the above report is William Brattle, for many years a member of the Governor's Council.

The Brattles of Boston, were a family of much distinction. Rev. William Brattle, the father of the above, was an instructor in the college, and afterward became the minister of the Cambridge Church. The old Brattle Street Church in Boston, as well as the street itself, commemorates the name of a brother, Thomas Brattle.

of the Massachusetts Bay, assembled at Watertown, Sept. 20, 1775.

The Memorial and petition of Isaac Backus, agent for the Baptist churches in said colony, humbly sheweth :

That whereas the honorable Congress of this Province did, on the ninth day of December last, pass a resolve wherein "They recommend to the Baptist churches that when a General Assembly shall be convened in this colony, they lay the real grievances of said churches before the same when and where their petition will most certainly meet with all that attention due to a memorial of a denomination of citizens so well disposed to the public weal of their country." And as such an assembly is now convened, we humbly represent that our real grievances are, That we as well as our fathers have from time to time been taxed on religious accounts where we are not represented, and when we have sued for our rights our causes have been tried by interested

judges.

That the representatives in former assemblies as well as the present were elected by virtue only of civil and worldly qualifications, is a truth so evident that we presume it need not be proved to this assembly; and for a civil legesliture to impose religious taxes is, we conceive, a power their constituents never had to give, and is therefore a going entirely out of their jurisdiction. That the legesliture of this province have made laws to determine how religious ministers shall be chosen and settled, and so compell all the inhabitants to support them, is a known fact; and all the acts that they have ever made to exempt baptists from taxes to such ministers have been framed in such a manner as that they must im

1 So far as we are aware, this petition has never before been published, save a few paragraphs in Backus' " History." The manuscript from which we quote may be the original or a copy therefrom. This petition was first read to the Association, and it was voted unanimously that it should be presented.

plicitly give in to the assemblies' right to impose such taxes, or else they rarely could enjoy any exemption therefrom.' And when the baptists have done so, they yet have often been taxed to pedobaptist ministers, and if they have sued for recompense their causes have been tried before pedobaptist judges and jurors who know that so much money as they can get from their neighbors for their own ministers, so much they save to themselves. Yea, the very lawyers that are employed to plead our causes are interested against our true freedom, because they know if that was once granted, a great source of their own gain would be stopt. A glaring instance of these biases we experienced between the passing of the cruel Port Bill and its arrival at Boston; for in that juncture the case of mr. Nathan Crosby was tried at Charlestown, when a lawyer he employed, while he was pleading the case, cautioned the jury against giving him too much damages; the judges did the same, and the effect was such that they allowed Crosby but three pounds damages for his being taxed to the pedobaptist minister of Chelmsford, contrary to your own law, and being imprisoned for it four days; yea, and the court who found that he was unlawfully taxed, yet judged that the constable who carried him to gaol should recover costs of Crosby for so doing out of the said three pounds.

This is but a sketch of the evidence we have of our being taxed and judged unconstitutionally; and we beg leave to observe that 'tis evident to us that our rulers have been drawn into and carried along this unconstitutional way by a method of arguing which is far from being honorable, viz., Begging the question; for we hold as fully as our opponents do that it is the duty of those who are taught to communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. But the question between us is, whether that duty ought to be enforced with the magis

1 For the different exemptive acts, see Appendix F.

trate's sword or not? It is a most certain duty for men daily or continually to offer praise to our great Creator, and both of these duties are called sacrifices to God in Heb. 13 15-17, and why have not civil rulers as good right to order men to gaol for not praying daily in their families as they have for not giving money to religious ministers? But the constant methods of the advocates of the scheme we oppose has been to quote Scriptures that prove it to be the duty of people to communicate to their teachers, and then take it for granted that civil rulers ought to enforce that duty by the sword without any proof at all; yea, so far from it, that under the legal dispensation where God himself prescribed the exact proportion of what the people were to give, yet none but persons of the worst characters attempted to take it by force (1 Sam. 2 : 12, 16; Mica 3: 5-9). How daring then must it be for any to do it for Christ's ministers, who says, My kingdom is not of this world!

When Scripture fails, recourse is often had to the good fathers of this country who established the congregational way of worship, and from thence 'tis argued that rulers still ought to support it. Permit me therefore to mention a few words of the steps they took to establish that way. There was nothing of it in the first nor last charter of their colony, but in both the assembly were limitted not to make any laws contrary to the laws of England; but when the General Court met at Boston, May 14, 1634, they enacted, "That the former oath of freemen shall be revoked so far as it is dissonant from the oath of freemen here underwritten, and that those that received the former oath shall stand bound no further thereby to any intent or purpose than this new oath tyes those that take the same. Their former oath bound them to submit to "all such laws, orders, sentences, and decrees as should be lawfully made and published" by this government; but this act absolved the freemen from that article and bound them to submit "to the wholesome laws and orders made and