a more rigorous
enforcement of the laws against Nonconformists. The effect was to
cause the lagging emigration to New England to assume immense volume.
There was no longer concealment of the purposes of the emigrants, for
the Puritan preachers began everywhere to speak openly of the
corruptions of the English church.[18] In September, 1633, the
theocracy of Massachusetts were reinforced by three eminent ministers,
John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and Thomas Shepard; and so many other
persons accompanied and followed them that by the end of 1634 the
population was not far short of four thousand. The clergy, now
thirteen or fourteen in number, were nearly all graduates of Oxford or
Cambridge.

This exodus of so many of the best, "both ministers and
Christians,"[19] aroused the king and Archbishop Laud to the danger
threatened by the Massachusetts colony. Gorges, Mason, and the rest
renewed the attack, and in February, 1634, an order was obtained from
the Privy Council for the detention of ten vessels bound for
Massachusetts. At the same time Cradock, the ex-governor of the
company, was commanded by the Privy Council to hand in the
Massachusetts charter.[20] Soon after, the king announced his
intention of "giving order for a general governor" for New England;
and in April, 1634, he appointed a new commission for the government
of the colonies, called "The Commission for Foreign Plantations," with
William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, at the head. Mr. Cradock
transmitted a copy of the order of council, requiring a production of
the charter, to Boston, where it was received by Governor Dudley in
July, 1634.

This was a momentous crisis in the history of the colony. The governor
and assistants made answer to Mr. Cradock that the charter could not
be returned except by command of the general court, not then in
session. At the same time orders were given for fortifying Castle
Island, Dorchester, and Charlestown. In this moment of excitement the
figure of Endicott again dramatically crosses the stage of history.
Conceiving an intense dislike to the cross in the English flag, he
denounced it as antichrist, and cut it out with his own hands from the
ensign borne by the company at Salem. Endicott was censured by the
general court for the act, but soon the cross was left out of all the
flags except that of the fort at Castle Island, in Boston Harbor.[21]

Massachusetts, while taking these bold measures at home, did not
neglect th