These proving ineffectual, the Puritans passed laws which authorized the cropping of the ears, boring the tongues with hot irons, and hanging on the gibbet offending Quakers.
Even these terrible laws could not keep them away.

On a bright October day in 1659, two young men named William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, with Mary Dyer, wife of the Secretary of State of Rhode Island, were led from the Boston jail, with ropes around their necks and guarded by soldiers, to be hanged on Boston Common.

Mary walked between her companions hand in hand to the gallows, where, in the presence of Governor Endicott, the two young men were hung.

Mary was unmoved by the spectacle.

She was given into the care of her son, who came from Rhode Island to plead for her life, and went away with him; but the next spring this foolish woman returned and began preaching and was herself hung on Boston Common.
The severity of these laws caused a revulsion of public sentiment.