Footnote 460: J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 104. Footnote 461: _Ibid._, vol. I, p. 167. Footnote 462: _Ibid._, vol. I, p. 168; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 129. Owing to continued pressure, however, the legislature withdrew its opposition the following year, and in 1635 permission was granted the towns of Watertown, Roxbury, and Dorchester to move anywhere, provided that they would continue subordinate to the Massachusetts government—a condition which that government had no legal right to impose. A few months later it went further, indeed, and passed a law that no one could leave the colony without permission of a majority of the magistrates.[463] As, under a previous law, no one could settle in Massachusetts without the consent of the half-dozen or more men mainly in control, so now no one, however uncongenial his surroundings or urgent his need, could leave without permission from the same little group. Footnote 463: _Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 146, 148, 167. Parties from Dorchester at once availed themselves of the Court's consent to leave, and by July were arriving daily on the Connecticut. On that river no spot would suit them except that already bought and occupied by the Pilgrims, from which the Massachusetts people now tried to oust them. In reply to a protest from Governor Bradford, the Dorchester men had the effrontery to answer that, as to the land settled by the Pilgrims, God “in a faire way of providence tendered it to us.” Upon this bit of fraud and hypocritical cant, Bradford caustically commented that they should “abuse not Gods providence in such allegations.” Massachusetts, however, was strong, and the Plymouth people were weak; and although the latter did finally wring a reluctant acknowledgment that the right was on their side, nevertheless they were forced to yield fifteen sixteenths of their land, and were allowed only one sixteenth and a little money, in an enterprise which was wholly theirs, in which they had courteously tendered Massachusetts a half interest, and which was located entirely outside any territory to which that colony had any legal title. There was good reason for Bradford's note in his diary, that the controversy was ended, “but the unkindness not so soone forgotten.” The winter was very severe, and many of the new settlers were obliged to return to Boston; but in the spring, Hooker, with most of his congregation, emigrated to the river, traveling overland, with their herds of cattle, the precursors of an endless western stream. These newcomers, Bradford carefully notes, as we also are glad to do, treated the Pilgrims more fairly. By the end of 1636, there may have been eight hundred people in Connecticut, settled mainly at Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield, while the little settlement of Springfield, within the legal limits of Massachusetts, had also been planted.[464] Footnote 464: