Note 181 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. I., Chap. xiv., pp. 500, 506.
Their attempt to bribe the King was not the less bribery, whether Cranfield, for his own amusement, or otherwise to test their virtue, suggested it to them or not. But without any suggestion from Cranfield they bribed the King's clerks from their fidelity in the Privy Council, and bribed others "to obtain favour." The whole tenor of Scripture injunction and morality is against offering as well as taking bribes. After authorizing the employment of bribery in England to promote their objects, the Court closed their sittings by appointing "a day for solemn humiliation throughout the colony, to implore the mercy and favour of God in respect to their sacred, civil, and temporal concerns, and more especially those in the hands of their agents abroad." (Palfrey, Vol. III., B. iii, Chap. ix., pp. 374, 375.)