Note 210 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
Neal's History of New England, Vol. II., Chap, xi., p. 476.
Massachusetts would doubtless have retained the election of their Governor and their first Charter, as did the colonies of Rhode Island and Connecticut, had her rulers submitted to the conditions on which Charles the Second proposed to continue their Charter. Mr. Hildreth says: "The Charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island never having been formally annulled, and having already been resumed, were pronounced by the English lawyers to be in full force.... The English lawyers held that the judgment which Massachusetts had persisted in braving was binding and valid in law, until renewed by a writ of error, of which there was little or no hope." (History of the United States, Chap, xviii., pp. 94, 95.)