Winthrop government. 308 However, such a parliamentary attitude did not suffice to discourage other attempted appeals to England. When some of the remonstrants were further fined for subversive activities in drafting petitions for presentation to parliamentary interests in England in connection with their initial sentences, appeals were again unsuccessfully attempted. 804 The colonists apparently considered themselves victorious, for in a 1651 petition to Parliament they expressed gratitude for the stopping of appeals from the colony to Parliament. 305 The emphasis placed by the General Court upon the letter of the charter provisions foreshadowed what was to become major strategy in later controversies. Although the charter clearly contemplated the administration of justice in the colonies by the grantees, 306 the lack of any provision for an appeal from the decisions of the governing body to Parliament is understandable. Obviously, if a right of appeal had been inserted, the appeal would have been to the King in Council, not to Parliament. But since the appeal denied here was made to Parliament, it did not afford an exact precedent for denial of an appeal to the King when that question should arise. 307 We have already seen the probable explanation for failure to reserve such appeal in earlier charters. 308 The problem of charter terms and English control was further complicated in the case of Massachusetts Bay by the circumstance that the charter did not preclude the company from holding its meetings in the territory Discovered, 2 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. (3d ser.), 123- 303 A May 25, 1647, letter from the Commissioners after Winslow had presented the above petition stated: "And perceiving by your petition, drat some persons do take advantage, from our said letter, to decline and question your jurisdiction, and to pretend a general liberty to appeal hither, upon their being called in question before you for matters proper to your cognizance, we thought it necessary (for preventing of further inconveniences in this kind) hereby to declare, that we intended not thereby to encourage any appeals from your justice, nor to restrain the bounds of your jurisdiction to a narrower compass than is held forth by your letters patent, but to leave you with all that freedom and latitude that may, in any respect, be duly claimed by you; knowing that the limiting of you in that kind may be very prejudicial (if not destructive) to the government and public peace of the colony." 2 Winthrop's Journal, 337. In tiiis connection note that the "Charter of Civil Incorporation" granted to Providence Plantation by Warwick and the Parliamentary commissioners on March 17, 1643/4, contained no reservation of appeals. See 2 R.I. Hist. Soc. Coll., 259. For the authority of Warwick et al. see ibid., 250. 304 For an account of these activities see Kittredge, loc. cit., 39-41. For the trial and sentence, ibid., 52-59; 3 Rec. Mass. Bay, 113. For mention of the appeal see Maverick, A Briefe Description of New England, 1 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. (2d ser.), 240; Clarendon Papers, 2 NYHS Pub. Fund Ser. (1869), 23. One ground of the second fine imposed upon Maverick was "appealing against the intent of his oath of a freeman" (3 Rec. Mass. Bay, 113). 305 1 Hutchinson, op. cit., 430. 300 See 3 Thorpe, op. cit., 1858. 307 See C. H. Mcllwain, The Transfer of the Charter to New England and Its Significance in American Constitutional History, passim, in Constitutionalism and the Changing World (1939), c. x. 308 Supra, pp. 41-42.