Samuell Gorton arrived in Boston in March, 1636-7.[13] A few months before, Roger Williams had been banished from Massachusetts Bay. The Colonial authorities were now agitated by the heresies of Anne Hutchinson and John Wheelwright.[14] They, in turn, were shortly compelled to seek other dwelling places to secure opportunity for free expression of opinion. Evidently, the liberty of conscience which Gorton sought was not to be safely exercised in Boston. He turned his steps toward Plymouth, the home of the Separatist Pilgrims, hoping there to find the goal of his desires. In Plymouth he hired for four years a part of the house of Ralph Smith, formerly the minister of the Plymouth church, of whom Roger Williams for a brief time had been the colleague. Here Gorton first met the founder of Rhode Island, while on a visit to his former home. Gorton dwelt quietly in Plymouth[15] for a time, with his family; his wife, Mary,[16] whom he married in London, of whom he says: “She had been as tenderly brought up as any man’s wife then in town,” his eldest son Samuell, a boy of six years when he left England, his daughter Mary, and one or two other children; and one Mrs. Aldredge, a worthy woman, a widow, and a servant of Mrs. Gorton’s. It was the latter member of his household who got him into trouble with the Plymouth authorities. She committed the unpardonable sin of smiling in meeting, on what provocation we know not.[17] Samuell Gorton defended her before the magistrates, and advised her not to appear in person to answer to their charges, which were based upon no express allegations of the violation of law. He vigorously denounced their action as in opposition to those English precedents which the customs of many generations had established for the legal protection of persons unjustly accused of violations of the public peace. For his alleged contumacy and mutinous behavior he was fined, held under bonds to keep the peace, and sentenced to banishment from the Colony within fourteen days.[18]