It is difficult to overestimate the influence which, in time, these two ideas, of a democratic church polity and a voluntary covenant as the only basis for a civil government, would come to exert upon those holding them; but for the moment, the result was the forcible expulsion from the community of two members who did not hold them. John and Samuel Browne, both men of good estate, the one a merchant and the other a lawyer, and both original patentees of the Company, had left England for Salem in the spring of 1629, with high recommendation to Endicott from the Company at home, as men much trusted and respected.[304] When the Salem church was organized, the two brothers, who were both on the council, objected, accusing the ministers of having become Separatists, which they denied. As the Brownes refused to give up the use of the prayer-book, and held private services with their followers, Endicott, either from personal feeling or from a real fear that the trouble would disrupt the colony, took a strong stand, and shipped them back to England.[305] There is no contemporary account of the details, and it is therefore as unwise, perhaps, to condemn Endicott, as it is unjustifiable to speak of the Brownes as “anarchical,” or, with an odd lack of humor, as “Schismatical.”[306] Endicott was mildly censured by the Company in England, who wrote that they conceived that “it is possible some undigested councells have too sudainely bin put in execution, wch may have ill construccion with the state heere;” while the ministers were asked to clear themselves if innocent, or else to look back upon their “miscarriage wth repentance.” In time the Brownes seem to have been settled with satisfactorily on a cash basis.[307] Footnote 304: T. Hutchinson, _History of Massachusetts_ (Salem, 1795), vol. I, p. 19; Young, _Chron. Mass._, p. 168. Footnote 305: Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 19; Morton, _New England's Memorial_, pp. 100 _f._ Footnote 306: Young's epithets, in _Chron. Mass._, p. 160 _n._ Footnote 307: _Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 409, 407, 52, 54, 61, 69. While progress was thus being made in the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay colony, another project for a Puritan settlement was rapidly taking form. After the dissolution of the Virginia Company, the quarrel between the Sandys and Warwick factions was continued in the courts of the Somers Islands, or Bermuda Company, and its affairs were going from bad to worse, largely owing to the frequent changes in the person of the governor as the two factions succeeded each other in power at home. In April, 1629, Sir Nathaniel Rich received a long letter from Governor Bell, in regard to various matters, in the course of which he described two islands lying in the Caribbean, in either of which he thought one year would “be more profitable than seven years here,” and placed the disposition of both islands in Warwick's hands.[308] Footnote 308: