John Porter, Jr., the eldest son of the founder of that most respectable family, about thirty years of age, appears to have been a very wicked and incorrigible person. His abusive treatment of his parents reached a point where it became necessary, in the last resort, to appeal to the protection of the law. After various proceedings, he was finally sentenced to stand on the ladder of the gallows with a rope around his neck for an hour; to be severely whipped; committed to the House of Correction; kept closely at work on[i.220] prison diet, not to be released until so ordered by the Court of Assistants or the General Court; and to pay "a fine to the country of two hundred pounds." It is stated, that, if the mother of the culprit "had not been overmoved by her tender affections to forbear appearing against him, the Court must necessarily have proceeded with him as a capital offender, according to our law being grounded upon and expressed in the Word of God, in Deut. xxi. 18 to 21. See Capital Laws, p. 9, § 14." Some time afterward, the General Court, upon his petition, granted him a release from imprisonment, on condition of his immediate departure from this jurisdiction; first giving a bond of two hundred pounds not to return without leave of the General Court or Court of Assistants. In 1664, four commissioners, Colonel Richard Nichols, Sir Robert Carr, George Cartwright, and Samuel Maverick, Esqs., were sent over by Charles II. "to hear and determine complaints and appeals in all causes, as well military as criminal and civil." There had always been a powerful influence at work in the English Court adverse to New England. It had been thus far successfully baffled by the admirable diplomacy of the colonial government and agents. All conflicts of authority had been prevented from coming to a head by a skilful policy of "protracting and avoiding." But the restoration of the Stuarts boded no good to the liberties of the colonies; and the arrival of these commissioners with their sweeping authority was regarded as designed to deal the long-deferred[i.221] fatal blow at chartered rights. They began with a high hand. The General Court did not quail before them, but stood ready to take advantage of the first false step of the commissioners; and they did not have long to wait.