It was not long before he became involved with the Portsmouth authorities in a controversy concerning an alleged assault of his servant on a woman who had trespassed on his land in pursuit of a cow which was also a trespasser. Gorton again defended his servant, and denied the legal constitution and jurisdiction of the court. “They did not have the choice of the people,” he says, “but set up for themselves. I know not any more that was present in their creation but the clergieman who blessed them in their inauguration.” His language was doubtless vigorous and not wholly parliamentary.[22] His keen sense of justice was outraged by the proceeding, and his sympathetic nature led him to severe retorts upon a witness who, in his opinion, swore falsely, and the magistrates who were biased in favor of the prosecution. For his alleged mutinous behavior he was imprisoned and again sentenced to banishment. His enemies say that he was also whipped,[23] but the Portsmouth records, which are explicit in reciting the charges and the other penalties, make no mention of this infliction. There is evidence, also, that he had many friends and sympathizers in the settlement. One of these, John Wickes, for refusing to testify and denying the legality and jurisdiction of the court, was placed in the stocks, and with four others was banished and disfranchised.[24] The little circle of congenial and independent souls was growing under persecution. From Portsmouth they pressed on to Providence, and though apparently seeking to avoid rather than to encourage controversy, they soon became involved in disputes which had already divided that settlement into two parties.[25] I shall not enter into the merits of this controversy, which involved civil and not religious questions. As in Portsmouth, Gorton denied the legality of the self-constituted town government, and held that justice could not be maintained until the law was administered under authority delegated by the Mother Country. He was as anxious as any for liberty, but he would have liberty protected by law. As an Englishman, dwelling in a community of Englishmen, he claimed the protection of those principles of law and equity, which, since Magna Charta, had been thrown around all British citizens. For a time his vigorous maintenance of this doctrine brought him in conflict even with Roger Williams, who, Winthrop says, accused Gorton of “bewitching and bemadding poor Providence” with his new and radical opinions.[26]