It returned to Boston in October, 1633, and brought a reply from Van Twiller that the Dutch had also a claim under a grant from their States-General of Holland.[39] In December, 1633, Van Twiller heard of Holmes's trading-post and despatched an armed force of seventy men to expel the intruders.

They appeared before the fort with colors flying, but finding that Holmes had received reinforcements, and that it would be impossible to dislodge him without bloodshed, they returned home without molesting him.[40] The Plymouth settlers were destined to be dispossessed, not by the Dutch, but by their own countrymen.

The people of Massachusetts were now fully aroused, and the news that came to Boston in the summer of 1634 that the small-pox had practically destroyed the Indians on the river increased "the hankering" after the coveted territory.[41] The people of Watertown, Dorchester, and Newtown (Cambridge) had long been restless under the Massachusetts authority, and were anxious for a change.

Dorchester was the residence of Captain Israel Stoughton, and Watertown the residence of Richard Brown and John Oldham, all three of whom had been under the ban of the orthodox Puritan church.

At Watertown also had sprung up the first decided opposition to the aristocratic claim of the court of assistants to lay taxes on the people.