This circumstance was itself calculated to excite the jealousy of the Plymouth settlers, but the ceremonies and customs at "Merry Mount," which name Morton gave to the settlement in lieu of "Mount Wollaston," caused them to regard him with even greater disgust.

He instituted the Episcopal service and planted a May-pole eighty feet high, around which, for many days together, the settlers "frisked" hand-in-hand with the Indian girls.
As Morton was outside of the Plymouth jurisdiction, the colonists there had no right to interfere except in self-defence.

But the Plymouth people asserted that Morton sold arms to the Indians and received runaway servants.

This made him dangerous, and all the other "straggling settlements," though, like Morton's, of the church of England, united with the people at Plymouth in suppressing Morton's settlement.

In June, 1628, a joint force under Captain Miles Standish was sent against Merry Mount, and Morton was captured and shipped to England in charge of John Oldham, who had made his peace with Plymouth, and now took with him letters to the Council for New England and to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in which Morton's offences were duly set forth.[18] The settlements besides Plymouth which took part in the expedition were Piscataqua (Portsmouth); Nantasket (now Hull), then the seat of John Oldham; Naumkeag (now Salem); Winnisimmet (now Chelsea), where Mr.Jeffrey and Mr.Burslem lived; Cocheco, on the Piscataqua, where Edward Hilton lived; Thompson's Island, where the widow of David Thompson lived; and Shawmut (now Boston), where Rev.William Blackstone lived.