That the Massachusetts people should oppose these attempts to alter the methods of government which had been in vogue for half a century was inevitable, though some of the means they employed were certainly disingenuous. Their leaders, both lay and clerical, were unsurpassed in genius for argument and at this time outdid themselves. When Palmer was able to show that, according to English law, their land-titles were in many cases defective, they fell back on an older title than that of the Crown and derived their right from God, "according to his Grand Charter to the Sons of Adam and Noah." More culpable was the revival of the unfortunate habit of misrepresentation and calumny which had too often characterized the treatment of the enemy in Boston, and the spreading of rumors that Andros, who spent a part of the winter of 1688-1689 in Maine taking measures for defense, was in league with the French and was furnishing the Indians with arms and ammunition for use against the English. Such reports represent perhaps merely the desperate and half-hysterical methods of a people who did not know where to turn for the protection of their institutions. A wiser and shrewder move was made in the spring of 1688, when a group of prominent men determined to appeal to England for relief and sent Increase Mather, the influential pastor of the old North Church, across the ocean to plead their cause with the Crown. But relief was nearer than they expected. On November 5, 1688, William of Orange, summoned from Holland to uphold the constitutional liberties of Protestant England, landed at Torbay, and before the end of the year James II had fled to France. Rumors of the projected invasion had come to Boston as early as December, and reports of its success had reached the ears of the people there during the March following. Finally on April 4, John Winslow, arriving from Nevis, brought written copies of the Prince's declaration, issued from Holland, and two weeks later, on April 18, the leaders in the city, including many members of Andros's council, supported by the people of Boston and its neighborhood, rose in revolt, overthrew the government of Andros, and brought tumbling down the whole structure of the Dominion of New England, which had never from the beginning had any real or stable foundation. Having armed themselves, they seized Captain George, commander of the royal frigate, the _Rose_, lying in the harbor, as he came ashore to find out the cause of the noise and the tumult. Then they moved on to Fort Hill, where Andros, Randolph, and others had taken refuge. Here they defied the soldiers, who refused to fire, captured the fort, and carried their prisoners off to be lodged in private houses or the common jail. On the following day, they forced the Castle Island fort in the harbor to surrender and then imprisoned its commander; they demanded of the lieutenant in charge the delivery of the royal frigate and carried off