The letter examined by the triumvirate of governor, Elder, and captain proved that Lyford’s penitence, if indeed it had ever existed, had spent its strength in protestation. The writer alluded to the letters the governor had allowed to go forward, either by original or copy, and declared that all they had stated was true, “only not the half,” and that since their discovery he had been persecuted and browbeaten to the verge of existence, and all because he loved and clung to the Prayer Book and his Episcopal ordination. The letter closed with entreaties that a sufficient body of settlers, with military leaders, should at once be sent over to crush his present hosts and set him at liberty to follow his conscience. “At least, we may at once grant our brother liberty to follow his conscience in matters spiritual,” remarked the Elder with a grave smile, as he laid down the letter. “I think it will be best to summon a church meeting for next Lord’s Day, and utterly dismiss Master Lyford from our fellowship and communion. It is no less than sacrilege for a man who can write after this fashion to sit down at the Lord’s table with us, professing to be of us.” “You are right, Elder,” replied Bradford sternly, “and I leave the spiritual matter to you; but it is my duty, and one not to be slighted, to drive this traitor out of our body politic. He must leave Plymouth at once. Say you not so, Captain Standish?” “I say, bundle him into the Little James and send him back to England to his dear cronies there, or, better still, strip off his gown and bands and hang him as a traitor.” “To send him to England we have no warrant, nor would it be wise to invite English legislation in our particular affairs,” retorted the governor; “and as for hanging him, it is a course open both to these same objections and to something more. No, we shall simply bid him leave the colony and not return hither on any pretense. The wife and children may remain until he has a home whither to carry them.” “A righteous judgment,” pronounced the Elder, and as Standish growled assent, the matter was settled, and so promptly carried into effect that in less than forty-eight hours the renegade forever turned his back upon the place and the people who had trusted and honored him, and whom, had he been a faithful servant of his Master and the Church, he might undoubtedly have led to a renewed allegiance to the venerable Mother whose unwise severity rather than whose doctrine had driven them from the home of their ancestors.