The Humble PETITION AND ADDRESS Of the General Court sitting at Boston in New-England, UNTO The High and Mighty PRINCE CHARLES THE SECOND.  
And presented unto His Most-Gracious Majesty Feb. 11. 1660.  
March .11 Printed in the Year 1660.   

TO THE High and Mighty PRINCE CHARLES THE SECOND, By the Grace of God KING of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith.  
Most Gracious and Dread Sovereign,  
MAY it please your Majesty (in the day wherein you happily say, You now know that you are again King over your British Israel) to cast a favourable eye upon your poor Mephibosheths now, and by reason of lameness in respect of distance, not until now appearing in your presence, we mean New-England, kneeling with the rest of your Subjects, before your Majesty, as her Restored King. We forget not our Ineptness as to these approaches. We at present own such Impotency, as renders us unable to excuse our Impotency of speaking unto our Lord the King: yet Contemplating such a King who hath also seen Adversity, that he knoweth the heart of Exiles, who himself hath been an Exile; The Aspect of Majesty thus extraordinarily circumstanced, influenceth, and animateth, exanimated outcasts (yet outcasts as we hope for the truth) to make this Address unto their Prince, hoping to find Grace in your sight; We present this Script, the Transcript of our Loyal hearts, into your Royal hands, wherein we crave leave:  
To Supplicate your Majesty for your Gracious Protection of us, in the continuance both of our Civil Privileges, according to (and of our Religious Liberties, the grantees known end of suing for) the Patent conferred upon this Plantation by your Royal Father: This, This, viz. Our Liberty to walk in the Faith of the Gospel, with all good conscience, according to the order of the Gospel (unto which the former in these ends of the earth is but subservient) was the cause of our transporting ourselves, with our wives, little ones, and our substance, from that pleasant Land, over the Atlantic Ocean, into this vast and waste Wilderness: choosing rather the pure Scripture worship with a good conscience, in this poor remote Wilderness, amongst the Heathens, than the pleasures of England, with subjection to the Imposition of the then so disposed, and so far prevailing Hierarchy, which we could not do without an evil conscience: For this cause we are at this day in a Land, which lately was not sown, wherein we have conflicted with the sufferings thereof much longer than Jacob was in Syria; Our Witness is in Heaven that we left not our Country upon any dissatisfaction as to the constitution of the Civil State; Our Lot after the example of the Good Old Non Conformist, hath been only to Act a Passive part throughout these late Vicissitudes and successive Overturning of State; Our separation from our Brethren in this desert, hath been and is a suffering, bringing to mind the affliction of Joseph, but Providential exception of us thereby from the late Wars, and temptations of either party, we account as a favour from God, the former  us with sackcloth, the latter with innocency.  
What Reception, Courtesy, and Aequanimity those Gentlemen, and other Adherers to the Royal Interest in their adverse Changes visited these Parts were entertained with amongst us, according to the meaness of our Conditions, we appeal to their own reports.  
Touching complaints put in against us, our humble Request only is, that for the Interim wherein we are dumb, by reason of absence, Your Majesty would permit nothing to make an Impression upon your Royal heart against us, until we have opportunity and licence to answer for ourselves; Few will be nocent, said that Impleader, if it be enough to deny; few will be innocent, replied the then Emperor, if it be enough to accuse.  
Concerning the Quakers, open Capital Blasphemers, open Seducers from the Glorious Trinity, the Lords Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed Gospel, and from the Holy Scriptures, as the rule of life, open enemies to Government itself, as established in the hands of any but men of their own Principles, Malignant and Assiduous Promoters of Doctrines, directly tending to subvert both our Churches and State: After all other means for a long time used in vain, we were at last constrained, for our own safety, to pass a Sentence of Banishment against them upon pain of Death; such was their dangerous Impetuous and desperate Turbulence to Religion, and to the State Civil and Ecclesiastical, as that how unwilling soever, could it have been avoided, the Magistrate at least in conscience both to God and man, judged himself called for the defence of all, to keep the passage with the point of the sword held toward them; this could do no harm to him that would be warned thereby, their willingly rushing themselves thereupon was their own act, and we with all humility conceive a Crime bringing their bloods upon their own heads. The Quakers died not because of their other Crimes how capital soever, but upon their superadded presumptuous and incorrigible contempt of Authority, breaking in upon us, notwithstanding the Sentence of Banishment made known unto them; Had they not been restrained so far as appeared, there was too much cause to fear that we ourselves must quickly have died, or worse; and such was their Insolency that they would not be restrained but by Death; nay, had they at last but promised to departed the Jurisdiction, and not to return without leave from Authority, we should have been glad of such an opportunity to have said they should not die.  
Let not the King hear men's words, Your servants are true men, fearers of God and the King, and not given to change, zealous of Government and Order, Orthodox and peaceable in Israel, we are not seditious to the Interest of Caesar, no Schismatics as to the matters of Religion, we distinguish between Churches and their Impurities, between a living man, though not without sickness or infirmities, and no man; irregularities either in ourselves or others, we desire may be amended; we could not live without the public worship of God; we were not permitted the use of public worship, without such a Yoke of Subscription and Conformity, as we could not consent unto without sin: That we might therefore enjoy Divine Worship without humane mixtures; without offence either to God or man, or our own consciences; we with leave (but not without Tears) departed from our Country, Kindred and Father's house, into this Pathmos; in relation whereunto we do not say, Our Garments are become old, by reason of the very long Journey, but that ourselves, who came away in our strength, are by reason of very long absence, many of us become grey headed, and some of us stooping for age; The Omission of the prementioned Injunctions, together with the walking of our Churches, as to the point of order in the Congregational way, is all wherein we differ from our Orthodox Brethren.  
Sir, We lie not before your Sacred Majesty, the Lord God of Gods, the Lord God of Gods he knoweth, and Israel he shall know, if it were in Rebellion or Schism that we willingly left our dwelling in our own, or continue our dwelling in the strange Land, save us not this day.  
Royal Sir, If according to our humble Petition, and good hope the God of the Spirits of all flesh, the Father of mercies (who comforteth the Abject) shall make the permission of the bereavement of that All, for which we have and do suffer the loss of all, Precious, so Precious in your sight, as that your Royal heart shall be inclined to show unto us that kindness of the Lord in Your Majesty's Protection of us in these Liberties, for which we hither came, and which hitherto we have enjoyed upon Hezekiahs' speaking comfortably to us as to sons; This Orphan shall not continue fatherless, but grow up as a revived Infant under its Nursing Father: These Churches shall be comforted in a door of hope opened by so signal a Pledge of the lengthening of their Tranquillity; These poor and naked Gentiles, not a few of whom through Grace, are come and coming in, shall still see their wont Teachers with encouragement of a more plentiful increase of the Kingdom of Christ amongst them; and the Blessing of your poor afflicted (and yet we hope trusting in God) shall come upon the head and heart of that great King, who was sometime an Exile as we are:  
With a Religious Stipulation of our Prayers, we (Prostrate at Your, Royal feet) beg Pardon for this our boldness; Craving finally that our Names may be enrouled amongst  
Your MAJESTY'S most humble Subjects and Suppliants, JOHN ENDECOT Gov In the Name, and with the consent of the General Court.  
This was presented to His Most Excellent Majesty the 11. day of February 1660.