IAN FLEMINGS SUGGESTION 28

THE ART OF DECEPTION                                

HMS Seraph 1944

On 30th April 1943, a submarine, HMS Seraph, surfaced in the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain to deposit a dead man carrying false invasion plans in a briefcase, dressed as a British military intelligence officer. 

Several months before, Flight Lt. Charles Cholmondeley RAF of Section B1(a) of MI5, suggested dropping a dead man attached to a badly-opened parachute in France with a radio set for the Germans to find. The idea was for the Germans to think that the Allies did not know the set was captured, and pretend to be Allied agents operating it, thus allowing the Allies to feed them misinformation. This was dismissed as unworkable; however the idea was taken up later by the Twenty Committee, the small inter-service, inter-departmental intelligence team in charge of double agents. Cholmondeley was on the Twenty Committee, as was Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu, a Royal Navy intelligence officer.

Cholmondeley (left) and Montagu

Fleming

Cholmondeley got the idea from a 1939 memo written by Ian Fleming, later author of the James Bond novels. Fleming himself reportedly got the idea from a 1930s detective novel by Basil Thompson.

Montagu and Cholmondeley developed Cholmondeley's idea into a workable plan, using documents instead of a radio.

The actual body used was Glyndwr Michael (4 January 1909 - 24 January 1943) was an illiterate homeless man, born in Aberbargoed in Wales. His father, a coal miner, died when Michael was fifteen years old. His mother later died when he was thirty-one. Michael, homeless, friendless and with no money, drifted to London, where he lived on the streets. He died three years after his mother, when he was found in an abandoned warehouse close to King's Cross, after committing suicide by eating rat poison. Little is known of his life, save that he is buried in Huelva, Spain. 
The gravestone now reads:

"Glyndwr Michael; Served as Major William Martin, RM; Dulce et Decorum est pro Patria Mori.”

The Latin phrase translates as "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." 

I wonder.

As

MUTINY RESISTANCE AND EXPEDITIONS

William Bligh 1814

The 28^th April seems to be a day crowded with incident. On this day in 1789 whilst in the Pacific Ocean, some 1,300 miles west of Tahiti, near Tonga, mutiny broke out on HMS Bounty.  From all accounts, Fletcher Christian and several of his followers entered Bligh's cabin, which he always left unlocked, awakened him, and pushed him on deck wearing only his nightshirt, where he was guarded by Christian holding a bayonet. When Bligh entreated Christian to be reasonable, Christian would only reply, "I am in hell, I am in hell!" Despite strong words and threats heard on both sides, the ship was taken bloodlessly and apparently without struggle by any of the loyalists except Bligh himself. Of the 42 men on board aside from Bligh and Christian, 18 joined the mutiny, two were passive, and 22 remained loyal to Bligh.

The mutineers ordered Bligh, the ship's master, two midshipmen, the surgeon's mate (Ledward) and the ship's clerk into Bounty's launch. Several more men voluntarily joined Bligh rather than remaining aboard, as they knew that those who remained on board would be considered de jure mutineers under the Articles of War.

There is no portrait or picture of Fletcher Christian, however Bligh compiled a list of the mutineers with Fletcher Christian's name at the top, including the following description:

Fletcher Christian, Aged 24 years, 5ft 9 inches high, Dark Swarthy complexion - Complexion - Dark and very swarthy Hair blackish or very dark brown - Make-strong- Marks -? Tattoo on the left breast... His knees stand a little out and may be called a little bow legged. He is subject to violent perspirations and particularly his hands, that he soils anything he handles.

Bligh was still only 34 himself, with the rank of Lieutenant Commanding. After being placed in the launch, Bligh, with a crew of 18, navigated the 23-foot (7 m) open launch on a 47-day voyage to Timor in the Dutch East Indies. Equipped with a quadrant and a pocket watch and with no charts or compass, he recorded the distance as 3,618 nautical miles (6,710 km). Quite a remarkable bit of seamanship. Of the mutineers who did finally returned to England, it transpires that 3 were tried and eventually hanged on HMS Brunswick on 29th October 1792.

In Italy on the 28^th April, 1945, Benito Mussolini and his companion Clara Petacci were shot by members of the Italian Resistance Movement.   He was discovered and captured on the 27^th April,  in a truck that was part of a convoy of retreating German troops making for the Swiss border. There had apparently been an arrangement with the Partisans, of the 52^nd Garibaldi Brigade, that the convoy would be given safe passage providing no Italians were being concealed among the German soldiers. Mussolini and  Clara Petacci were found out by Urban Lazzaro. The official version is that Mussolini and Petacci were killed on the 28^th April at 4:10 pm a the gates of a villa at Giulino de Mezzegra, overlooking the lake. Lazzaro has stated they were killed the same day the 27th at 12.30pm when Petacci tried to grab a gun from one of the resistance fighters who were escorting them to Milan for a public execution. Shots were fired and Mussolini was hit "they finished him off on the spot and then shot Clara Petacci for causing the accident". There bodies were later hung in the square.

Just two years after the Italian Partisans revolted against their fascist leadership and 158 years after the Bounty expedition to the South Pacific, another expedition (which did not result in mutiny, revolt or hanging) set off to the same waters in April of 1947,  Kon-Tiki was a raft used by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in his expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian Islands. It was named after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name. The trip began on 28 April, 1947. Heyerdahl and five companions sailed the raft for 101 days over 4,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean before smashing into a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947. The crew made successful landfall and all returned safely.

ZITA'S FEAST

Miracle of Saint Zita by Bernardo Strozzi

Today 27th April is Saint Zita's Feast Day. She is the patron saint of maids and domestic servants and she is appealed to in order to find lost keys. She went into service at the age of twelve and by all  accounts led the life of a Cinderella before the ball. She spent her entire life in the house of the Fratinelli family in the village of Monsagrati, not far from Lucca in Tuscany.  She was canonised in 1696. Her body is appearently on display for public veneration in the Basilica di San Frediano in Lucca.

She was chief cook and bottle washer for the Fratinelli. An anecdote relates that whilst she was out doing good works, the Fratenelli checked in the kitchen and found angels doing her chores and baking bread for her. To this day she is honoured by people baking the odd loaf on her behalf.

There is even a recipe from The Cook's Blessings, The by Demetria Taylor.

St. Zita's Bread

Best not to depend on angels to bake your bread, as with St. Zita, but meet the challenge yourself, and bake a loaf in honor of the "Little Cook" on April 27.

 INGREDIENTS

1-1/2 cups boiling water

6 Tablespoons soft shortening

1-1/2 cup honey

1 Tablespoon salt

2 packages active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water (105-115°)

2 eggs

1 cup wheat germ

      5-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS

Combine boiling water, shortening, honey, and salt; stir until shortening melts. Cool to lukewarm. Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add yeast, eggs, wheat germ, and half the flour to lukewarm mixture. Beat 2 minutes on medium speed with electric mixer or 300 vigorous strokes with a spoon. Blend in remaining flour with a spoon. Dough will be sticky. Spread dough evenly in 2 well-greased loaf pans, 9 x 5 x 3 inches. Smooth tops by flouring hand and patting into shape. Let rise in warm place until 1 inch from top of pans. Bake at 375° for 45 to 50 minutes or until loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Crust will be dark brown. Remove from pans at once; brush tops with melted butter or margarine; cool on racks before cutting. Makes 2 loaves.

It was also on the 27th April 1992 that the House of Commons elected a woman to the post of Speaker for the first time in its 700 year history, which began around 1272 when Saint Zita died (27th April 1272) and Edward I came to the throne. It was during his reign that the role of Parliament began to rise.  The servants of the Crown had finally found a voice. Could that have been one of Zita's parting miracles? So perhaps Betty Boothroyd might do a bit a baking in honour of Saint Zita.

POLIARTICS AND LANGUAGE GAMES

Guernica

On the 26th April, 1937, the German Airforce (then under the Nazi regime of Adolph Hitler) and a section of the Italian Airforce raided the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. It was the first use of the blitzkrieg style attack  by the Luftwaffe. A practice run, not only for the Luftwaffe's 'Condor Legion' but also for Mussolini's Italian Fascist Aviazione Legionaria. It was coded Operation Rügen. Many civilians were killed. The bombing, at the time viewed as one of the first raids in the history of modern military aviation on a defenceless civilian population, was denounced as a terrorist act. The town was devastated. Pablo Picasso took a view of the event,

Picasso's view

It is not unusual for artists to make political comment through their work, and many, particularly Spanish artists, seem to do so.

Francisco Goya, Spain


The Shootings of May 3rd in Madrid, 1814

Edouard Manet, France
Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, 1868

Nowadays it is the poster, collage and graffiti that seem to have taken the forefront of expression:

There was another political event which occurred on the 26th April 1998, the massacre of a single individual, Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi was bludgeoned to death in the garage of his home in Guatemala City. His assailants used a concrete slab, disfiguring him to the extent that his face was unrecognisable and identification of the corpse was made by means of his episcopal ring. In 1988 the Conference of Bishops assigned Gerardi and another to serve on the National Reconciliation Commission. This later led to the creation of the Office of Human Rights of the Archbishopric (Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado, ODHA), which to date provides assistance for the victims of human rights violation. In that context work began on the Recovery of Historical Memory (REMHI) project. On April 24, 1998, REMHI presented the results of its work in the report Guatemala: Nunca Más.This report carried statements from thousands of witnesses and victims of repression during the Civil War and placed the blame for the vast majority of the violations on the government and the army.  The U.N. Truth Commission Report comes to very similar conclusions. The task of historical recovery that Gerardi and his team pursued was fundamental in the subsequent work of the UN-sponsored Historical Clarification Commission (CEH), set up within the framework of the 1996 peace process.

Two days after the publication of REMHI's report, on the 26th of April, 1998, Bishop Gerardi was bludgeoned to death. The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed Bishop Gerardi? 
by Francisco Goldman is an account of the battle to bring the bishop's murderers to justice. It is told from the inside, working with those in the archdiocesan human rights office who have made it their business to nail the culprits. It reads (and is categorised by its publishers) as "true crime", but in the hands of a subtle and fired-up author, this is a book that exposes the corrupt, brutal and ruthless political climate that the US has spent so many decades and so many millions of dollars maintaining in Central America.

Finally in 2006, the country's highest court upheld guilty verdicts against two military officers, a father and son, for the bishop's murder. As Goldman makes clear, there were many more who should have faced a court. The murder had been carefully planned and meticulously covered up. The fight for justice goes on.

It was also on the 26th April 1889 that Ludwig Wittgenstein was born. He left us with his Tractatus Logoco-Philosophicus (1921) and language games. He wrote to Bertrand Russell on 19th August of 1919:

Wittgenstein

"The main point is the theory of what can be expressed by prop[osition]s-i.e. by language-(and which comes to the same thing, what can be thought) and what can not be expressed by prop[osition]s, but only shown; which, I believe, is the cardinal problem of philosophy"

Jean-Francois Lyotard explicitly drew upon Wittgenstein's concept of language-games in developing his own notion of metanarratives. He said:

Lyotard

“Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.. This incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress in the sciences: but that progress in turn presupposes it. To the obsolescence of the metanarrative apparatus of legitimation corresponds, most notably, the crisis of metaphysical philosophy and of the university institution which in the past relied on it. The narrative function is losing its functors, its great hero, its great dangers, its great voyages, its great goal. It is being dispersed in clouds of narrative language elements--narrative, but also denotative, prescriptive, descriptive, and so on [...] Where, after the metanarratives, can legitimacy reside?”

A very good question indeed. I leave you today, after the language games with two politically inspired views by the artist Andy Thomas:

Republican Presidents playing poker

Democrats doing the same

HANDS ACROSS THE RIVER

The City of Torgau located in  Norhsachen, Saxony, Germany  is where the American Army met the Russian army on the 25th April 1945. They clasped hands across the Elbe and started to squeeze the rest of Germany. In 2009 I was driving through Germany with Duncan MacAskill,  and we visited Trogau. We drove towards the town centre and found ourselves by the memorial. It is a very Russian monument, including inscriptions in German and English. It is dedicated, “To the glory and honour of the Red Army and the allied troops for their heroism and hard won victory over fascist Germany”. “Here on the Elbe on April 25, 1945, the forces of the First Ukrainian Front of the Red Army linked up with American forces.” Across the road is a more modern monument, a wall with a bas relief depicting a Russian soldier shaking hands with a civilian and something to do with thanks, inscribed at the bottom.

On display, there is a photograph of the bridge as it was in 1945 after the battle. The field on the east bank is the same now as it was then, clear and green. The river’s flow is steady, unchanging. There is a calm stillness in the air save for the distant sound of traffic across the bridge.

Torgau Bridge 1945

East Bank of Elbe opposite Torgau

Memorial

New Bridge 2009

There are many memorials in Germany. There are many memorials throughout Europe, throughout the world. There are over 56,000 war memorials in the United Kingdom alone. What is it we are likely to forget about a war that requires so many reminders? Never again. Never again. two words repeated again and again, an unattainable undertaking as every undertaker knows.

THE THIRD ESTATE, LANGUAGE AND EQUALITY

Today the 23^rd April is reputedly William Shakespeare’s birthday. He was born in 1564, the same year as Christopher Marlowe, Galileo and Charles Loyseau amongst others.

Marlowe was the foremost Elizabethan writer next to Shakespeare. He died quite young at the age of 29, stabbed in a pub in Deptford, leaving us with seven major plays including Tamburlaine Parts 1 & 2, The Jew of Malta and Dr. Faustus.

Galileo Galilei is thus described by the eminent professor Stephen Hawking: "Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science." His achievements include important astronomical observations and support for Copernicus.

From Charles Loyseau, we have A Treatise on Orders and Simple Dignities, written in 1610, which evaluated French society and law, and was used to justify French social organisation of the ‘Ancien Régime’ until 1789. He described the three orders and how they function in society. The First Estate (The Clergy), The Second Estate (Nobility) and The Third Estate (Commoners) which included men of letters, (doctors, philosophers, teachers) financiers (anyone handling finances among provinces, parishes, or individuals) merchants, men of affairs (business men of any kind, notaries, attorneys, etc.), peasants, and laborers. They were distinguished by the work they provided, starting with men of highest education and monetary positions, descending to those men who had no job (beggars, vagabonds), who were considered the lowest of society. Loyseau is very critical of this order and did not consider it to be a sign of dignity to be part of the Third Estate.  Some of us would disagree and claim that to be part of the third estate is rather a mark of distinction.

Shakespeare gave us just about everything else, but mainly the English language, and it is the use to which that language is put which brings me to Theodore Roosevelt's contribution to the 23rd April. He was the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909. A year after his presidency, whilst travelling in France, he delivered a speech at the Sorbonne in Paris, France on the 23rd April 1910. The topic/title of the speech was "Citizenship in a Republic". Rather like Lincoln's Gettysburg Address it contains an oft quoted passage, which has been used by many a politician and statesmen to justify some endeavour of their own - an endeavour perhaps not too popular or subject to heavy criticism, whether triumphant or in despair. (Richard Nixon quoted it at his inauguration and at his resignation) It is dubbed "the man in the arena" speech:

...It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat…

Within the text of the speech, Roosevelt himself quoted Abraham Lincoln, in defining his ideas relating to the formation of a Republic. He said:

... we should not take part in acting a lie any more than in telling a lie. We should not say that men are equal where they are not equal, nor proceed upon the assumption that there is an equality where it does not exist; but we should strive to bring about a measurable equality, at least to the extent of preventing the inequality which is due to force or fraud. Abraham Lincoln, a man of the plain people, blood of their blood, and bone of their bone, who all his life toiled and wrought and suffered for them, at the end died for them, who always strove to represent them, who would never tell an untruth to or for them, spoke of the doctrine of equality with his usual mixture of idealism and sound common sense. He said (I omit what was of merely local significance):

"I think the authors of the Declaration of Independence intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in colour, size, intellect, moral development or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal- equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all - constantly looked to, constantly laboured for, and, even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, everywhere."

There is something about the precision of the English language that focuses the mind and makes us think better of ourselves and hopefully leads to better understanding. We are not all equal in our use of it, and some use it better than others; nonetheless, we can thank Shakespeare for his use of it. We all owe him that, equally. (or should it be, 'we all, equally, owe him that' ?). 

The full text of the speech can be found at: 

http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html

I am not sure how right he is about present day USA, but who am I to criticise?

BEST ENDINGS

Scrolling through events for 22nd April (on this occasion it happens to be Good Friday 2011) I spotted the name of Alida Valli. She died on this day in 2006. She had a most haunting face which is remembered largely due to her portrayals, firstly as a suspected murderess in Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947) and secondly as a young refugee, actress, comedienne, girlfriend of Harry Lime in The Third Man (1949). As regards the later film, she features in one of the best ever ending sequences in cinema:

She appeared in over 100 films. Here is a simple tribute to her and her co-stars Joseph Cotton, Orson Wells and Anton Karas, whose wonderful music remains locked in the brain to this day.

A birth on the 22nd April, 1904 led to another type of ending altogether. Julius Robert Oppenheimer was born in New York City. He became, during World War II, the scientific director of what was called 'The Manhattan Project'. To create an atomic bomb. He is sometimes referred to as the father of the atomic bomb. He achieved his goal on the 16th July 1945 in the New Mexican desert near Los Alamos. He said that when the bomb exploded on that day it brought to his mind words from the Bhagavad Gita (the Hindu scripture). It was the end of the world as we knew it. Thereafter everything around us was contaminated by potentially lethal radiation. It goes on to this day, and currently the first ever victims from 1945 are again suffering from nuclear fallout. The urgency with which we sought to create a nuclear reaction has left us with the curse of trying to control it. There seems to be no end to that endeavour, but it would be one of the best endings ever.

THE QUEEN, GROUNATION & RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE?

Today the 21^st April 2011 is Queen Elizabeth II’s 85^th birthday. She was born in 1926 the same year as Marilyn Monroe, Chuck Berry, Mel Brooks and Caroline Middleton DeCamp Benn, a.k.a. Viscountess Stansgate, who was an educationalist, writer, and wife of the British Labour politician Tony Benn. Ms Benn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. I do not know where her second name of Middleton comes from, or if she is any relation of the prospective daughter-in-law. Ms Kate would be lucky if she were. Caroline Benn was by all accounts a remarkable woman, author and educationalist who devoted her life to education.

The Queen also shares the 21^st April as a birthday with Charlotte Bronte, John Mortimer and Elaine May.

The 21^st April is also an important Rastafarian holy day. It is Grounation Day. It is celebrated in honour of Haile Selassie’s 1966 visit to Jamaica. On that day, some 100,000 Rastafari from all over Jamaica descended on Palisadoes Airport in Kingston, having heard that he was coming to visit them. They waited at the airport playing drums and smoking large quantities of marijua
Also on the 21st April 1649, the Maryland Toleration Act, which allegedly provided for freedom of worship for all Christians, was passed by the Maryland Assembly.

A large broadside reprint of the Maryland Toleration Act

The Preamble of the Act as pictured above reads:

A   L A W

OF

M A R Y L A N D

Concerning

R E L I G I O N

Forasmuch as in a well governed and Christian Commonwealth, matters concerning Religion and the Honour of God ought to be in the first place to be taken into serious consideration, and endeavoured to bee settled. Be it therefore Ordained and Enacted by the Right Honourable Caecilius Lord Baron of Baltemore, absolute Lord and Proprietary of this Province with the Advice and Consent of the Upper and Lower House of this General Assembly, That whatsoever person or persons within this Province and the Islands thereunto belonging, shall from henceforth blaspheme God, that is curse him; or deny our Saviour JESUS CHRIST to be the Son of God; or shall deny the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son & Holy Ghost; or the Godhead of any of the said Three Persons of the Trinity, or the Unity of the Godhead, or shall use or utter any reproachful speeches, words, or language concerning the Holy Trinity, or any of the said three Persons thereof, shall be punished with death, and confiscation or forfeiture of all his or her Lands and Goods to the Lord Proprietary and his Heirs.

Cæcillius Calvert,

The Maryland Toleration Act, also known as the Act Concerning Religion, was a law mandating religious tolerance for Trinitarian Christians. Passed on 21 April, 1649 by the assembly of the Maryland Colony.  Charles I granted the charter for Maryland, a proprietary colony of about twelve million acres, to Cæcillius Calvert, 2^nd Baron Baltimore in the Peerage of Ireland, on 20^th June, 1632. Lord Baltimore wished to create a haven for English Catholics in the new world at the time of the European wars of religion. It was, purportedly, the second law requiring religious tolerance in the British North American colonies and created the first legal limitations on hate speech in the world.

Historians argue that it helped inspire later legal protections for freedom of religion in the United States.

The Act allowed freedom of worship for all Trinitarian Christians in Maryland, but sentenced to death anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus.  Although Charles I granted the charter to Calvert in 1632, the Toleration Act was only made law on the 21^st April 1949, by which time the unfortunate Charles had been executed in London on the 30^th January of that year and the United Kingdom was in the hands of Oliver Cromwell. In 1654, only five years after its passage, the Act was repealed. Two years earlier, the colony had been seized by Protestants following the execution of the King and the outbreak of the English Civil War. In the early stages of that conflict, the colonial assembly of Maryland and its neighbors in Virginia had publicly declared their support for the King. Parliament appointed Protestant commissioners loyal to their cause to subdue the colonies, and two of them, the Virginian William Claiborne and Puritan leader Richard Bennett, took control of the colonial government in St. Mary's City in 1652. In addition to repealing the Maryland Toleration Act with the assistance of Protestant assemblymen, Claiborne and Bennett passed a new law barring Catholics from openly practicing their religion. Calvert regained control after making a deal with the colony's Protestants, and in 1658 the Act was again passed by the colonial assembly. This time, it would last more than thirty years, until 1692.

The Maryland Toleration Act was designed as an act of tolerance, allowing specific religious groups to practice their religion without being punished, but retaining the ability to revoke that right at any time. It also only granted tolerance to Christians who believed in the Trinity. The law was very explicit in limiting its effects to Christians;

...noe person or persons...professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth be any waies troubled, Molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof within this Province

—Maryland Toleration Act, 1649

Settlers who blasphemed by denying either the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus Christ could be punished by execution or the seizure of their lands. That meant that Jews, Unitarians, and other dissenters from Trinitarian Christianity were practicing their religions at risk to their lives. Any person who insulted the Virgin Mary, the apostles, or the evangelists could be whipped, jailed, or fined. Otherwise, Trinitarian Christians' right to worship was protected. The law outlawed the use of "heretic" and other religious insults against them. This attempt to limit the use of religious slurs and insults has been described as the first attempt in the world to limit the use of hate speech.

It is claimed that as the first law on religious tolerance in the British North America, it influenced related laws in other colonies and portions of it were echoed in the writing of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which enshrined religious freedom in American law.

Although how you get from:

 “…whatsoever person or persons...shall…blaspheme God, that is curse him; or deny our Saviour JESUS CHRIST to be the Son of God; or shall deny the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son & Holy Ghost;…shall be punished with death…”

 to:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

is a bit of a stretch for some of us.