To all this the complainants had only to oppose their own words--their papers having been seized.

They were overwhelmed by the mass of authority arrayed against them.

But though they were defeated for the time, they were not silenced; and the following two years were productive of such a mass of rumours and statements, all tending to prove the Church revolutionary and Church proscriptive proceedings of the Massachusetts Corporation, that the King and Council found it necessary to prosecute those inquiries which they had deferred in 1632, and to appoint a Royal Commission to proceed to Massachusetts Bay and inquire into the disputed facts, and correct all abuses, if such should be found, on the spot.

This was what the Massachusetts Bay persecutors most dreaded.

As long as the inquiry should be conducted in London, they could, by intercepting papers and intimidating witnesses, and with the aid of powerful friends in England--one or two of whom managed to retain their place in office and in the Privy Council, even when Charles ruled without a Parliament--with such advantages they could laugh to scorn the complaints of the persecuted, and continue their proscriptions and oppressions with impunity.