Whether through a complaisant spirit connected with this desire, or through mere accident, Connecticut had been prompt in acknowledging the restoration of Charles II.; and in August, 1661, she dispatched the younger Winthrop to England to apply for a charter. Winthrop was a man of winning address and of wide culture. His scientific tastes were a passport to the favour of the king at a time when the Royal Society was being founded, of which Winthrop himself was soon chosen a fellow. In every way the occasion was an auspicious one. The king looked upon the rise of the New England Confederacy with unfriendly eyes. Massachusetts was as yet the only member of the league that was really troublesome; and there seemed to be no easier way to weaken her than to raise up a rival power by her side, and extend to it such privileges as might awaken her jealousy. All the more would such a policy be likely to succeed if accompanied by measures of which Massachusetts must necessarily disapprove, and the suppression of New Haven would be such a measure. [Sidenote: New Haven annexed to Connecticut] In accordance with these views, a charter of great liberality was at once granted to Connecticut, and by the same instrument the colony of New Haven was deprived of its separate existence and annexed to its stronger neighbour. As if to emphasize the motives which had led to this display of royal favour toward Connecticut, an equally liberal charter was granted to Rhode Island. In the summer of 1664 Charles II. sent a couple of ships-of-war to Boston harbour, with 400 troops under command of Colonel Richard Nichols, who had been appointed, along with Samuel Maverick and two others as royal commissioners, to look after the affairs of the New World. Colonel Nichols took his ships to New Amsterdam, and captured that important town. After his return the commissioners held meetings at Boston, and for a time the Massachusetts charter seemed in danger. But the Puritan magistrates were shrewd, and months were frittered away to no purpose. Presently the Dutch made war upon England, and the king felt it to be unwise to irritate the people of Massachusetts beyond endurance. The turbulent state of English politics which followed still further absorbed his attention, and New England had another respite of several years. [Sidenote: Founding of Newark]