But though the government could oppress the men, they could not make their principles unpopular, and the next December after Vassal and his friends had left the colony, the orthodox Samuel Symonds of Ipswich wrote mournfully to Winthrop: “I am informed that coppies of the petition are spreading here, and divers (specially young men and women) are taken with it, and are apt to wonder why such men should be troubled that speake as they doe: not being able suddenly to discerne the poyson in the sweet wine, nor the fire wrapped up in the straw.” [Footnote: Felt’s _Eccl. Hist._ i. 593.] The petitioners, however, never found redress. Edward Winslow had been sent to London as agent, and in 1648 he was able to write that their “hopes and endeavours ... had been blasted by the special providence of the Lord who still wrought for us.” And Winthrop piously adds: “As for those who went over to procure us trouble, God met with them all. Mr. Vassall, finding no entertainment for his petitions, went to Barbadoes,” [Footnote: Winthrop, ii. 321.] ... “God had brought” Thomas Fowle “very low, both in his estate and in his reputation, since he joined in the first petition.” And “God had so blasted” Childe’s “estate as he was quite broken.” [Footnote: Winthrop, ii. 322.] Maverick remained some years in Boston, being probably unable to abandon his property; during this interval he made several efforts to have his fine remitted, and he did finally secure an abatement of one half. He then went to England and long afterward came back as a royal commissioner to try his fortune once again in a contest with the theocracy. Dr. Palfrey has described this movement as a plot to introduce a direct government by England by inducing Parliament to establish Presbyterianism. By other than theological reasoning this inference cannot be deduced from the evidence. All that is certainly known about the leaders is that they were not of any one denomination. Maverick was an Episcopalian; Vassal was probably an Independent like Cromwell or Milton; and though the elders accused Childe of being a Jesuit, there is some ground to suppose that he inclined toward Geneva. So far as the testimony goes, everything tends to prove that the petitioners were perfectly sincere in their effort to gain some small measure of civil and religious liberty for themselves and for the disfranchised majority. Viewed from the standpoint of history and not of prejudice, the events of these early years present themselves in a striking and unmistakable sequence.