rescued our innocent brother, as sometimes the Israelites did Jonathan,
and yet they did not seditiously. The covenant of free grace held forth by
our brother hath taught us rather to become humble suppliants to your
worships, and if wee should not prevaile, wee would rather with patience
give our cheekes to the smiters." [Footnote: _Idem_.]

The liberal feeling ran so strongly in Boston that the conservatives
thought it prudent to remove the government temporarily to Cambridge, that
they might more easily control the election which was to come in May.
Vane, with some petulance, refused to entertain the motion; but Endicott
put the question, and it was carried. As the time drew near the excitement
increased, the clergy straining every nerve to bring up their voters from
the country; and on the morning of the day the feeling was so intense that
the Rev. Mr. Wilson, forgetting his dignity and his age, scrambled up a
tree and harangued the people from its branches. [Footnote: Hutch.
_Hist_. i. 62, note.]

Yet, though the freemen were so deeply moved, there was no violence, and
Winthrop was peaceably elected governor, with a strong conservative
majority in the legislature. It so happened that just at this time a
number of the friends of Wheelwright and the Hutchinsons were on their way
from England to settle in Massachusetts. The first act of the new
government was to exclude these new-comers by passing a law forbidding any
town to entertain strangers for more than three weeks without the consent
of two of the magistrates.

This oppressive statute caused such discontent that Winthrop thought it
necessary to publish a defence, to which Vane replied and Winthrop
rejoined. The controversy would long since have lost its interest had it
not been for the theory then first advanced by Winthrop, that the