Samuel Gorton, from his heretical notions in religion, according to the Gospel of New England, and his somewhat explosive efforts to defend persons he thought oppressed by the colonial authorities, had led a troubled and troubling life in Massachusetts, Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Providence. Indeed, in his wandering course through the Puritan heavens, he seems to have been as fatally followed by trouble as a comet by its luminous tail. As he punctuated his career by denominating the Massachusetts magistrates “a generation of vipers,” the Governor of Plymouth, “Satan,” and the justice of Portsmouth, “a just-ass,” he can hardly be said to have had an ingratiating way with the authorities, although no crime could be laid at his door. The people of that day had an insatiable passion for ploughing in the theological field, which was always proving as full of unexploded shells as any on the modern battle-front of France, and Gorton seems to have had a fatal facility for turning these up. He had already been blown out of three colonies, when, after some experience with him, the men of Providence decided that he or they must leave. Finally banished, he made an Indian purchase, and settled some miles to the south. This, however, was not far enough for his former neighbors, who, in 1641, asked assistance from Massachusetts in ridding them of Gorton. That colony refused to consider the request, unless Providence would place herself under her jurisdiction.[530] The matter became complicated by a dispute between Miantanomo and two other sachems, arising out of Gorton's purchase, and the sachems also applied to Massachusetts. Both they and the Providence men were received under her jurisdiction, and the next move was to send a force of forty armed men to take Gorton and his party into custody.[531] Even those opposed to him in Providence suggested arbitration; but the Massachusetts clergy advised the magistrates that this was not an “honorable” course, as the Gorton party “were no state, but a few fugitives living without law or government,” and “their blasphemous and reviling writings” could be “purged away only by repentence and public satisfaction.”[532] The case was, therefore, prejudged without a hearing, and the more summary method was taken of trying to set fire to the log fort in which Gorton and his company had taken refuge. Footnote 530: J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 69 _ff._; _Rhode Island Historical Society Collections_, vol. II, pp. 191 _f._ Footnote 531: J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 144 _ff._; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. II, pp. 26 _f._, 40. Footnote 532: J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 168 _f._