epared to do his worst. He sent several reports to the King and
constantly appeared before the Privy Council and the Lords of Trade,
each time doing all the damage that he could. He had undoubtedly got
much of his information from prejudiced sources or from hearsay, and he
was as eager to retail it as had been the Massachusetts authorities to
blast the moral character of the King's commissioners. He denounced the
"old faction" as cunning, deceptive, overbearing, and disloyal; he
called the clergy proud, ignorant, imperious, and inclined to sedition;
and he denounced those in authority as "inconsiderable mechanicks,
packed by the prevailing party of the factious ministry, with a
fellow-feeling both in the command and the profits." His picture of the
colony, containing much that was near the truth, was at the same time
distorted, out of proportion, and in parts almost a caricature. His most
effective reports were those which laid stress upon the failure of the
colony to obey the navigation acts and the royal commands, and upon its
use of the word "Commonwealth," as if the corporation were already an
independent state. These reports were accepted by the English
authorities as correct statements of fact, for they seemed to be
confirmed by the evidence of London merchants and by at least one West
Indian governor, who knew the colony and had no personal interests at
stake.

In October, 1676, Massachusetts sent over two of its leading men,
William Stoughton, a magistrate, and Peter Bulkeley, speaker of the
House of Representatives, to ward off, if possible, the attack on the
colony, but with characteristic short-sightedness gave them no authority
to discuss officially anything but the Mason and Gorges claims. For more
than two years these men, representative rather of the moderate party
than of the "old faction" in the colony, remained in England, frequently
appearing before the Lords of Trade, where they were subjected to a
searching examination at the hands of a not very sympathetic body of
men. The meetings in the Council Chamber in Whitehall, where the
committee sat, were occasions full of interest and excitement. At one of
them, on April 8, 1677, Stoughton, Bulkeley, Randolph, Mason, and Sir
Edmund Andros, Governor of New York for the Duke, were all present, and
the agents must have found the situation awkward and embarrassing. The
committee expressed its resentment at the colony's habit of disobedience
and evasion, and s