After their trial and conviction the court censured them to be expelled the place; Oldham at once, though his wife and family had leave to stay all the winter, or longer, till he could make provision to remove them comfortably. Lyford had leave to stay six months,—with some eye to remission of the sentence if he behaved himself well in the meantime, and his repentance proved sound. Lyford acknowledged his censure was far less than he deserved. Afterwards he confessed his sin publicly, with tears, in the church, more fully than before. I shall here record it, taken down in his own words. He acknowledged that he had done very evil, and had slanderously abused them. He had thought that most of the people would take part with him, and he would carry all with a strong hand against them; that God might justly lay innocent blood to his charge, for he knew what harm might have come of his writings, and blessed God they were intercepted. He had listened to any evil that was spoken, but shut his eyes and ears against all good; and if God should make him a vagabond on the earth, as was Cain, it was but just; for he had sinned in envy and malice against his brethren. He confessed three things to be the cause of his doings: pride, vainglory, and self-love—amplifying these generalities with many other sad expressions in particular. They began to conceive well of him again after his repentance, and admitted him to preach amongst them as before; and Samuel Fuller, a deacon, and some other tender-hearted men amongst them, were so taken in by his signs of sorrow and repentance, that they said they would fall upon their knees to have his sentence repealed. But what amazed them all in the end, and will amaze all others who come to hear of it,—for a rarer precedent can hardly be shown,—was, that after a month or two notwithstanding all his former convictions, confessions, and public acknowledgments, both in the face of the church and the whole company, with so many sad tears and censures of himself before God and man, he should try again to justify what he had done. For he secretly wrote a second letter to the adventurers in England, in which he justified all his former writings,—except as regards some things in which he had disparaged them,—which, as it is briefer than the former, I will here insert: _John Lyford at New Plymouth to the Adventurers in England_: Worthy Sirs,