The expedition, however, had been allowed to sail, carrying a somewhat fatuous letter from Winthrop to d'Aulnay, stating that the Massachusetts volunteers were, if possible, to effect a reconciliation, that they possessed no commission, and that, if they did anything “against the rules of justice and good-neighborhood,” they should be held accountable.[562] In spite of this, some of the men attacked d'Aulnay's plantation, burned his mill, killed his cattle, and plundered one of his vessels of beaver skins. The latter were brought back to Boston and sold at auction, and the proceeds were divided among the soldiers.[563] The enterprise had been neither successful, glorious, nor profitable; and when de la Tour again applied for help, in July of the following year, Endicott, who had opposed the original participation of the colony, had succeeded Winthrop as governor. The only result of de la Tour's suit, therefore, was a proclamation of neutrality “till the next general court,” and the dispatch of a letter to d'Aulnay offering satisfaction, and likewise requesting it for his own earlier depredations on the Penobscot.[564] In September, the Commissioners of the United Colonies met and passed a resolution forbidding, in future, such acts of volunteers as Massachusetts had connived at.[565] Footnote 562: J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 151. Footnote 563: Paper signed by Saltonstall and Hathorne. _Ibid._, vol. II, Appendix O, pp. 464 _ff._ Footnote 564: _Ibid._, p. 220. Footnote 565: _Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 22. The struggle between the two rivals had not been limited to fighting in America, but had been carried on at the French Court, where each had striven for recognition. In this d'Aulnay had been successful, and the ignominious end of the whole matter for the English was that Massachusetts finally had to abandon her claims against him, and to make him a gift as an acknowledgment of her own wrong in joining de la Tour's expedition.[566] The affair, however, helped to strengthen the deputies against the body of ministers and magistrates, whose unwarranted action, as well as lack of statesmanship and even of common prudence, had been mainly instrumental in bringing unnecessary humiliation upon the colony without the consent of its representatives. Footnote 566: J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 318, 334 _ff._; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. III, pp. 44, 74 _ff._; _Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 56 _ff._