In spite of these severe enactments the Quakers returned; and the more they were persecuted, the more they appeared to aspire to the distinction of martyrdom. Holden, Copeland, and John Rouse, in 1658, had their right ears cut off; but the magistrates were afraid of the effect upon the people of a public execution of the law, and hence inflicted the penalty in private, inside the walls of the prison, in spite of the protest of the unfortunates, after which they were again flogged and dismissed.[14] In October 1658 a further step was taken in accordance with the advice of the Federal Commissioners, who met in Boston in September, and the penalty of death was threatened upon all who, after being banished from the jurisdiction under pain of death if they returned, should again come back.[15] Massachusetts was the only colony to take this step, which indeed was carried in the meeting of the Commissioners by her influence against the protest of Winthrop of Connecticut; and the measure was passed by a bare majority of the General Court after long debate, and with the express proviso that trial under this act should be by special jury, and not before the magistrates alone. Captain Edward Hutchinson and Captain Thomas Clark, men whose names should be remembered, desired leave to enter their dissent from the law. The Court was urged on to this unfortunate action by a petition from twenty-five of the citizens of Boston, among whom we find the name of John Wilson, the pastor of the First Church. These represented that the “incorrigibleness” of the Quakers after all the means that had been taken was such “as by reason of their malignant obdurities, daily increaseth rather than abateth our fear of the Spirit of Muncer and John of Leyden renewed, and consequently of some destructive evil impending,” and asked whether the law of self-preservation did not require the adoption of a law to punish these offenders with death.[16] In order to justify its action, the Court ordered that there should be “a writing or declaration drawn up and forthwith printed to manifest the evils of the teachings of the Quakers and danger of their practices, as tending to the subversion of religion, of church order, and civil government, and the necessity that this government is put upon for the preservation of religion and their own peace and safety, to exclude such persons from among them, who after due means of conviction should remain obstinate and pertinacious.”[17] This declaration was composed by John Norton, and printed at public expense.[18]