In a letter to the countess of Lincoln, March 28, 1631, the deputy governor, Thomas Dudley, one of the warmest of the Puritans, repelled "the false and scandalous report," which those who returned "the last year" had spread in England that "we are Brownists in religion and ill affected to our state at home"; "and for our further cleareinge," he said, "I truely affirme that I know noe one person who came over with us the last yeare to be altered in his judgment and affection eyther in ecclesiasticall or civill respects since our comeinge hither."[2] Winthrop and his assistants held their first formal session at Charlestown, August 23, 1630, and took vigorous measures to demonstrate their authority.

Morton challenged attention on account not only of his religious views and his friendship for Gorges, but of his defiant attitude to the colony, and an order was issued that "Morton, of Mount Wolliston, should presently be sent for by process." Two weeks later his trial was had, and he was ordered "to be set into the bilboes," and afterwards sent prisoner to England.

To defray the charges of his transportation, his goods were seized, and "for the many wrongs he had done the Indians" his house was burned to the ground,[3] a sentence which, according to Morton, caused the Indians to say that "God would not love them that burned this good man's house."[4] Death was still playing havoc with the immigrants at Charlestown.
Several hundred men, women, and children were crowded together in a narrow space, and had no better protection than tents, wigwams, booths, and log-cabins.

By December two hundred of the late arrivals had perished, and among the dead were Francis Higginson, who had taken a leading part in establishing the church at Salem, the first in Massachusetts.[5] The severity of the diseases was ascribed to the lack of good water at Charlestown, and, accordingly, the settlers there broke up into small parties and sought out different places of settlement.
On the other side of the Charles River was a peninsula occupied by William Blackstone, one of the companions of Robert Gorges at Wessagusset in 1626.

It was blessed with a sweet and pleasant spring, and was one of the places now selected as a settlement.