Note 131 — Chapter V
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It was in refutation of such reports that Col. Nichols made the statements quoted on a previous page; in the course of which, referring to the slanders circulated by persons high in office under the Court, he said: "Some of them are these: That the King hath sent us over here to raise £5,000 a year out of the colony for his Majesty's use, and 12d. for every acre of improved land besides, and to take from this colony many of their civil liberties and ecclesiastical privileges, of which particulars we have been asked the truth in several places, all of which reports we did, and here do, disclaim as false; and protest that they are diametrically contrary to the truth, as ere long we shall make it appear more plainly."
"These personal slanders with which we are calumniated, as private men we slight; as Christians we forgive and will not mention; but as persons employed by his Sacred Majesty, we cannot suffer his honour to be eclipsed by a cloud of black reproaches, and some seditious speeches, without demanding justice from you against those who have raised, reported, or made them." (Ib., p. 56.)
These reports were spread by some of the chief officers of the Council, and the most seditious of the speeches complained of was by the commander of their forces; but they were too agreeable to the Court for them even to contradict, much less investigate, although Col. Nichols offered to give their names.
Hubbard, the earliest and most learned of the New England historians, says:
"The Commissioners were but four in number, the two principal of whom were Colonel Nichols and Colonel Cartwright, who were both of them eminently qualified, with abilities fit to manage such a concern, nor yet wanting in resolution to carry on any honourable design for the promotion of his Majesty's interest in any of those Plantations whither they were sent." (Massachusetts History Collection, Vol. V., Second Series, p. 577.)