[69]24d. 6 m.—Wee visited G.1 Beale, sorely afflicted with ye stone. He complained yt he could not in ye extremity of ye pain submitt with cheerfullness to ye will of God; & told us yt God spake many things to him under this exercise.
26d. 6 m.—Mr. Mitchell wth diverse came to visit us; or discourse tended to provoke to give up or selves wholly to Jesus Christ and make him ye whole delight of or souls.
Within a few days after Whalley and Goffe left Cambridge, orders arrived from England for their arrest; and there was at least a show of earnest exertion, on the part of the magistrates, to overtake them; but the effort was in vain. Knowing that dissatisfaction existed in the English government, not only on account of their friendly reception of the regicides, but also for their persistent disregard of the navigation laws, and many other acts of insubordination, the General Court which assembled May 22, 1661, attempted to remove some of the causes of offence. They rebuked the apostle Eliot for publishing a book advocating a “Christian Commonwealth” rather than a monarchy; they modified their laws concerning Quakers, and soon afterwards expressed their intention to comply with the laws concerning navigation. On the last day of the session, which had extended into June, they adopted a vote which clearly indicates their conception of the grave difficulties which surrounded them, and their anxiety to devise means of escape:—
For as much as the present condition of our affairs in highest concernments call for a diligent and speedy use of the best means seriously to discuss and rightly to understand our liberty and duty, thereby to beget unity amongst ourselves in the due observance of obedience and fidelity unto the authority of England and our own just privileges, for the effecting whereof it is ordered by this Court, that Mr. Symon Bradstreet, Mr. Samuell Symonds, Major General Denison, Mr. Danforth, Major Win. Hauthorne, Capt. Tho. Savage, Capt. Edward Johnson, Capt. Eliazer Lusher, Mr. Mather, Mr. Norton, Mr. Cobbet, and Mr. Michell, be and hereby are appointed a committee, immediately after the dissolution or adjournment of the Court, to meet together in Boston on second day next, at twelve of the clock, to consider and debate such matter or thing of public concernment touching our patent, laws, privileges, and duty to his Majesty, as they in their wisdom shall judge most expedient, and draw up the result of their apprehensions, and present the same to the next session for consideration
