Meanwhile, the controversy over the right of appeal from Massachusetts Bay 
to authorities in England, raised in the case of Dr. Child, was not allowed to 
languish. Upon the Restoration there was an increased awareness on the part 
of English officialdom of the importance of the colonial possessions and of 
the necessity for establishing a system of colonial administration. 348 Within 
a few months of the return of the King, the need for imperial control ap- 
peared, when the actions of Massachusetts Bay were complained of in petitions 
of grievance. 349 At least one Restoration pamphlet adverted to the former 
denials of appeals by this colony. 350 Informed by Leverett, its agent in 
England, of the threat to impose a royal governor, the General Court forwarded 
a sycophantic address to the King and shrewd Fabian instructions to 
its agent. 351 Among other instructions it was insisted that no appeals be 
allowed to England in any cause; 352 Leverett is alleged to have asserted this 
right in no uncertain terms. 353 
In 1661 divers petitions complaining of various actions of the Massachusetts 
Bay government were presented to the Privy Council. 354 Samuel Maverick, 
an indefatigable opponent of the Puritan regime, took great pains to bring the 
offending colony under some form of imperial control. 355 In his accusations 
against the colony Maverick utilized the Child episode to advantage as an 
example of arbitrary and recalcitrant conduct. 358 Whether advocating the dispatch 
of a general governor or of commissioners to New England, he advised 
that the power to hear appeals be granted. 357 While declarations were being 
made of an intention to send commissioners to New England, 358 the offending 
colony avoided de facto recognition of a right of appeal by inaction upon 
a royal order that Quakers imprisoned under sentence of death or other 
corporal punishment be forwarded to England for such treatment as the law 
provided and their actions warranted. 359 
sis 3 Osgood, op. cit., 143 et seq. 
349 2 Hutchinson Papers (Prince Soc. Pub. ; 
1865), 48. 
360 See Gardiner, New England's Vindication 
(1660; Gorges Soc. Pub., 1884), 31-32. 
361 2 Hutchinson Papers, 43, 47. 
352 "As also that no appeale may be permitted 
from hence in any case civill or criminall, 
which would be such an intollerable and unsupportable 
burthen as this poore place (at this 
distance) are not able to undergoe, but would 
render authoritie and government vaine and 
uneffectuall, and bring us into contempt with 
all sortes of people" (ibid., 48). 
353 He is reported by Samuel Maverick to have 
declared that before the colonists would admit 
of appeals to England they would deliver New 
England up to the Spaniards (Clarendon 
Papers, 24, 30). See also the report of Mason 
et al. to the King (CSP, Col, 1661-68, #230). 
354 Ibid., #45, 50, 51, 53. 80. 
355 The issuance of the 1664 commission 
(infra) has been attributed to the perseverance 
of Maverick. See W. H. Sumner, History of 
East Boston (1858), 156. 
356 See Clarendon Papers, 23, 29-30, 41, 
where for obvious reasons the case is misrepresented. 

357 Clarendon Papers, 26, 36. He also urged 
as a condition for continuation of the Massachusetts 
charter, "that they admitt of Appeales 
on iust and reasonable grounds" (ibid., 43). 
358 CSP, Col., 1661-68, #370, 437- 
359 1 Osgood, op. cit., 286; 3 ibid., 165-66; 
G. E. Ellis, The Puritan Age and Rule in the 
Colony of Massachusetts, 1629-1685 (1888),