Gorton and his companions were summoned to Boston to make answer to Pomham’s claim.[31] Denying the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, in a spicy correspondence, Gorton refused to obey the summons. Increase Nowell, Secretary of the Colony, and the Boston Elders, discovered no less than twenty-six instances of blasphemy, “or thereabouts,” in the terms of Gorton’s epistle. The Gortonists were warned that if they continued contumacious they would be regarded as “fitted for the slaughter,”[32] and would be peremptorily dealt with by force of arms. A company of twenty white men and an equal number of Indians, under the command of Captain Cook, was dispatched to seize them and bring them to Boston for trial. On their approach, the Gortonists sent their women and children across the bay, retired to their block-house on Conimicut Point, and awaited the invading force of the enemy. A company of peace-makers from Providence[33] demanded a parley, and proposed the arbitration of the matters in dispute, to prevent the shedding of blood. The Gortonists appealed to the King and were willing to arbitrate, but the proposition was sternly rejected by Gov. Winthrop. “You may do well to take notice,” he said, “that besides the title to land between the English and the Indians there, there are twelve of the English that have subscribed their names to horrible and detestable blasphemies, who are rather to be judged as blasphemous than they should delude us by winning time under pretence of arbitration.” The Gortonists stood siege for a day and a night,[34] and repelled the attempt of the men of Massachusetts and their savage allies to set fire to the block-house; then, to save bloodshed, under promise that they would be treated as neighbors, and that their claims would be submitted to fair judgment in Massachusetts, they surrendered to superior force, and were taken to Boston for trial.[35] They speedily found, however, that they were regarded as prisoners and not as “friends and neighbors” seeking a just and amicable settlement of civil disagreements. The soldiers, Gorton says, were ordered to knock down any one who should utter a word of insolence, and to run any one through who might step aside from the line of advance. When they arrived in Boston, “the chaplain (of their captors) went to prayers in the open streets, that the people might take notice that what they had done was done in a holy manner, and in the name of the Lord.”[36] There was no pretence of a judicial consideration of their rights as settlers at Shawomet. They were regarded as criminal offenders, and were examined and convicted on the charge of blasphemy. Gorton was placed on trial for his life before the General Court and Convocation of Elders. Four queries, referring to statements in his vigorous rejoinder to the summons of the Massachusetts authorities, were propounded, and upon his replies the decision of the Court was to be rendered:[37]