July 9, 1675, the people of Saybrook saw an armed fleet heading for their fort. The men hurried to the fort and put themselves under the command of Captain Bull. Then a letter came from the governor at Hartford telling them what to do. "And if so be those forces on board should endeavor to land at Saybrook," so ran the order, "you are in His Majesty's name to forbid their landing. Yet if they should offer to land, you are to wait their landing and to command them to leave their arms on board; and then you may give them leave to land for necessary refreshing, peaceably, but so that they return on board again in a convenient time." Major Andross sent a request that he might be allowed to land and meet the officers of Saybrook. The request was granted, and Captain Bull, with the principal men of the town, met the Englishman and his officers on the beach. Captain Bull stated the orders he had received from the governor of Connecticut. Andross, with great haughtiness, waved the orders aside, and told his clerk to read aloud the commission he held from the Duke of York. But Captain Bull was not easily cowed. He ordered the clerk to stop his reading of the commission. The surprised clerk hesitated a minute, then went on with the reading. "Forbear!" thundered the captain, in a tone that startled even Major Andross. The major, however, haughty and overbearing though he was, could not help but admire the other man's determined manner. "What is your name?" he asked. "My name is Bull, sir," was the answer. "Bull!" said Andross. "It is a pity that your horns are not tipped with silver." Then, seeing that the captain and his men would not listen to his commission from the Duke of York, Andross returned to his small boat, and a few hours later his fleet sailed away from the harbor. The colony of Connecticut, like those of Massachusetts and New York, now had a checkered career. Governor John Winthrop, who had done so much for his people, died. False reports of the colony were carried to England, the people were accused of harboring pirates and other outlaws. Finally, in 1686, Andross, now Sir Edmund Andross, was given a royal commission as governor of New England. Sir Edmund went to Boston, and from there sent a message to the governor of Connecticut saying that he had received an order from the king to require Connecticut to give up its charter as a colony. The governor and council answered that, though they wished to do the king's bidding in all things, they begged that they might keep the original grants of their charter. Sir Edmund's answer to that was to go to Hartford. October 31, 1687, he entered Hartford, accompanied by several gentlemen of his suite and with a body-guard of some sixty soldiers. He meant to take the charter in spite of all protests.