at work on prison diet, not to be released until so ordered by the Court of Assistants or the General Court; and to pay “a fine to the country of two hundred pounds.”  It is stated, that, if the mother of the culprit “had not been overmoved by her tender affections to forbear appearing against him, the Court must necessarily have proceeded with him as a capital offender, according to our law being grounded upon and expressed in the Word of God, in Deut. xxi. 18 to 21.  See Capital Laws, p. 9, Sec. 14.”  Some time afterward, the General Court, upon his petition, granted him a release from imprisonment, on condition of his immediate departure from this jurisdiction; first giving a bond of two hundred pounds not to return without leave of the General Court or Court of Assistants.

In 1664, four commissioners, Colonel Richard Nichols, Sir Robert Carr, George Cartwright, and Samuel Maverick, Esqs., were sent over by Charles II. “to hear and determine complaints and appeals in all causes, as well military as criminal and civil.”  There had always been a powerful influence at work in the English Court adverse to New England.  It had been thus far successfully baffled by the admirable diplomacy of the colonial government and agents.  All conflicts of authority had been prevented from coming to a head by a skilful policy of “protracting and avoiding.”  But the restoration of the Stuarts boded no good to the liberties of the colonies; and the arrival of these commissioners with their sweeping authority was regarded as designed to deal the long-deferred fatal blow at chartered rights.  They began with a high hand.  The General Court did not quail before them, but stood ready to take advantage of the first false step of the commissioners; and they did not have long to wait.

Porter had taken refuge in Rhode Island.  When the commissioners visited that colony, he appealed to them for redress against the Massachusetts General Court.  They were inconsiderate enough to espouse his cause, and issued a proclamation giving him protection to return to Boston to have his case tried before them.  The General Court at once took issue with them, and changed their attitude from the defensive to the offensive; denounced their proceedings; spread upon the official records a full account, in the plainest language, of Porter’s outrages upon his parents, exhibiting it in details that could not but shock every sentiment of humanity and decency; holding up the commissioners as the abettors and protectors of criminality of the deepest dye; and planting themselves fair and square against them on the merits of Porter’s case.  The commissioners tried to explain and extricate themselves; but they could not escape from the toils in which, through rashness, they had become entangled.  The General Court made a public declaration charging the commissioners with “obstructing the sentence of justice passed against that notorious offender,” and with sheltering and countenancing