he turned on
Warwick, declared that the charter had been surreptitiously obtained,
and demanded that it be brought to the Council board. Learning that it
had gone to New England, he forced the withdrawal of Warwick from the
Council, and from that time forward for five years bent all his efforts
to overthrow the Puritan colony by obtaining the annulment of its
privileges.

In this attempt, he was aided by Captain John Mason, an able, energetic
promoter of colonizing movements who had already been concerned with
settlements in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and who was zealous to
begin a plantation in the province of Maine. Mason had received grants
from the Council, both individually and in partnership with Gorges, and
had visited New England in the interest of his claims. Through the
influence of Gorges, he was now made a member of the Council and joined
in the movement to break the hold of the Puritans upon New England. He
and Gorges found useful allies in three men who had been driven out of
Massachusetts by the Puritan leaders soon after their arrival at
Boston--Thomas Morton of Merrymount, Sir Christopher Gardiner, a
picturesque, somewhat mysterious personage thought to have been an agent
of Gorges in New England, with methods and morals that gave offense to
Massachusetts, and Philip Ratcliffe, a much less worthy character given
to scandal and invective, who had been deprived of his ears by the
Puritan authorities. These men were bitter in their denunciation of the
Puritan government.

The situation was perilous for the new colony, which was hardly yet
firmly established. In direct violation of the royal commands, hundreds
of men and women were leaving England--not merely adventurers or humble
Separatists, but sober people of the better classes, of mature years and
substantial characters. When, therefore, Gorges and the others meeting
at Gorges's house at Plymouth brought their complaints to the attention
of the Privy Council, they were listened to with attention, and
instructions were sent at once to stop the Puritan ships and to bring
the charter of the Massachusetts Company to the Council board. To check
the Puritan migration and to institute further inquiry into the facts of
the case a commission was appointed in 1634, with Archbishop Laud at its
head, for the special purpose, among others, of revoking charters
"surreptitiously and unduly obtained." Gorges and Morton appealed to
Laud against the Puritans, and