When the Royal Commissioners, as directed by the King, came to investigate the complaints on this disputed boundary of territory, they decided against the pretensions of the Massachusetts Bay rulers, and appointed magistrates, etc., to give effect to their decision; but the authorities of Massachusetts Bay, acknowledging no superior under heaven, resumed control of the territory in dispute as soon as the Commissioners had left the country.

Mr.Hildreth says: "Shortly after the departure of the Royal Commissioners, Leverett, now Major-General of the Colony, was sent to Maine, with three other magistrates and a body of horse, to re-establish the authority of Massachusetts.

In spite of the remonstrances of Col.

Nichols at New York (the head of the Royal Commission), the new Government lately set up was obliged to yield.

Several persons were punished for speaking irreverently of the re-established authority of Massachusetts." (Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol.